Click here for pictures from Salta. Geez, I totally forgot to mention. So, on the great football game day, not only did our team win, but Air Canada scored a small victory. When we returned to the hotel, the missing bag had shown up! If it could write a blog, I’m sure it would be interesting, but sadly, we can only ever guess at the route it took to get back to us. But it did. Fully intact. Huzzah, vacation angst spared. One more thing to note, if heading to a football match, shirts are 30pesos before the game. Afterwards, you can score the same one for 20 pesos (7 bucks), so I’m now sitting in my ‘away’ jersey for river, a nice adidas tech shirt (well, let’s be honest, Adidas has no idea this shirt exists, hence adidas with the lower case a). Till next post, stay cool (while I stay hot!)
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16/01/08
Hello from the west coat of the North Island! Today I really did a day off. I took a bus from Wanganui up to New Plymouth. The ride was about 162km, which meant biking there and back would have taken at least 4 days, time which I simply can’t spare if I hope to be on the South Island by February. However, I did want to come up this way and take the time to check out Mount Egmont / Mount Taranaki. Yes, the second-highest peak on the North Island has two names. One is the Maori name, and the other is left over from when NZ was colonized. Nowadays, most people are referring to it as Taranaki, which I think is the better name anyway. Of course, there is more to this region than just the massive volcano which acts as a stand-in to Mount Fuji in the movie ‘The Last Samurai’. If you want to learn a little more, just read on, and don’t forget to check out my ever-so-useful map that I put together.
Well, Jody and I had such a great time visiting New York that we’ve decided to make a return visit in the next few weeks. Andrea is currently working down there representing Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs on their mission to the United Nations. Or something like that.
At any rate, we’ve booked tickets to head down there from Ottawa on the bus. It’s about 9 hours each way, and we plan to make the trip on the red-eye. So we leave Ottawa at 10pm Thursday, and arrive 7am Friday. Ths shitty part is on the return trip, we get back to Ottawa at 7am on Monday. Oh well, straight to work for us!
Another funny thing that I learned is that on Greyhound, you don’t actually reserve a seat, you just get a ticket, valid for up to 1 year. That’s a bit scary, but the guy assured me if we get in by 30 minutes before the bus leaves, we should get on. Here’s hoping! All that remains is that we get our camera back from the shop by then, We haven’t had out camera since Peru. The lens wouldn’t open anymore. Woes us…
Catchy title, isn’t it? That’s the number of squished possums I counted today on my 80km journey. They were in various states of decomp, some looking very fresh indeed. I’m happy to say that I didn’t run over a single one myself. Although I bet I could inflict some pain on the little varmin. It’s easy to understand why they are a target. They all but wiped out Kiwis in New Zealand, and the department of Conservation actually encourages motorists to attempt to hit the possums wherever possible. And it would appear that the overzealous NZ drivers have taken that to heart. Well, regardless of the roadkill, my day was considerably better today than it has been in the last two, in spite of it being my furthest day in the saddle. Read on for a little bit about my happy day cycling in Northern New Zealand.
Click here for pictures from Salta. Another sunny, beautiful day in Salta. Our last day and night before heading to Cafayate, the land of delicious white wine, particularly a variety known as Torontes. For a final fun experience, half of our group decided we´d go out for a half day of horseback riding, then a lazy afternoon in the city, hence my time to blog right now. Argentineans in this region are definitely leaning towards more of a desert-like frontier, and that means there are plenty of cowboys and riding to be done. They apparently don´t ride western style. I didn´t know what that meant. The short version is that they have diferent saddles, and use only one hand, rather than two on western style. I was quite excited to do this, in spite of the fact that I really have no horse experience. This will come into play later in my story, believe me 😉 The start to our day was a little confusing, as we hadn´t really been given much information on how the day was arranged, ultimately, we were picked up by two taxis at 9:30, and headed to a place called San Lorenzo, which I think is a rich enclave not far from Salta, the land is much more lush, and the houses quite large. As the cowboys put it, mucho deniro. read on.