¡Hola!
I write to you from the land of the world best steaks (and bloody good wine too); Argentina. This is 100% great/amazing/exceedingly delightful news, because it equates to me finally leaving Australia and travelling once more! In fact I have been on the move for the last few weeks, visiting a bit more of Australia, Fiji, a brief night in New Zealand, and Chile.
My first travelling escapade after escaping from Australia was the sunny paradise of Fiji. Call it a holiday within a big holiday, I once again joined forces with Andy who had been in Fiji for a week or so, scouting the Islands. So after spending the first night at Fiji´s major football tournament in Nadi, we planned to board a boat to the Yasawah islands to the north-west. Sadly as fate would have it, it was raining the next day. The following day too. Oh and the next just for luck… In fact it rained for 3days straight, confining us to the dining room (the only dry place) when we did eventually arrive on our first island. Not to be deterred from having a good time, the staff demonstrated plenty of dancing – Fiji style - and unfortunately got us involved too. But on the fourth day the sun eventually, and with some embarrassment, decided to show itself. Normal Fiji style swimming, sunbathing and beach volleyball service was resumed. The holiday begun!
Moving on from our mini holiday we briefly stopped in New Zealand and caught a new time travel device with wings to Chile (our fist stop in South America) ...I say time travel primarily because we climbed aboard this so called ´plane´ friday evening, spent almost 12 bored hours watching films, and somehow arrived 3hrs before we left on Friday afternoon! Rather odd sorts of planes they use these days.
Due to a series of unfortunate events (actually not involving us being stupid for once), we unsuccessfully tried to watch a game of South American ´futbol´ in Santiago Chile. I say unsuccessful because the game wasn’t being played in the stadium in which we had been assured it was. We kinda guessed something was odd being the only people at the stadium 30 minutes before kick off. But no worries… as luck would have it the biggest game in domestic South American futbol was on the following weekend in Argie-bargie land. River Plate were hosting their local rivals Boca Juniors in Buenos Aries. And as any self respecting football fan would, we promptly acquired tickets and raced across the width of South America to watch the game!
(Although the match fizzed out into a 1-1 draw the crowed lived up to their reputation; especially the crazy Boca fans! I shall put a video from inside the stadium on Facebook when I can)
On the way to Buenos Aries we did make a quick pit-stop in Mendoza, the capital of Argentinean steak and wine. Pit-stop is a bit of a wee lie as we ended up staying a few days, rented bikes and went on a very successful tour of the local wineries. Safe to say I don´t completely remember the events of that day, particularly the afternoon and evening, but I do remember being woken up rafting over rapids and splashed by very icy water the next morning. All in the name of travelling!
Anyhoo I´ll leave you here until next time. We are currently on the Brazil/Paraguay/Argentina border checking out a giant waterfall before leaving for Paraguay in a few days. Guess I shall probably get the chance to write again from Bolivia or Peru. Take care and ciao ciao for now.
Daves x
