Just in a nick of time!

Yes, I made it to Ushuaia in time for Christmas!

I finally arrived at 9.30pm on Christmas Eve, with an hour to spare even to join the hostel´s Christmas dinner and festivities.

After many nibblies and a few pre-dinner drinks, it was roast chicken, veges, salads & postres, topped off with a few champagnes and more red wine. I can assure you the drinks went down very well and were much needed after the past few days drama´s!

Apart from being a tad homesick, all in all it was a nice cold and cosy Patagonian Christmas :)

Feliz Navidad y Nuevo Año!

I LOVE christmas time.....usually!

I thought I would be spending a lovely christmas in the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia (Patagonia) Argentina. I still may, but luck does not appear to be on my side at the moment?

Ushuaia is a 40 hour bus journey from Bariloche, my previous stop. Two days have passed and I am yet to arrive! Buses running incredibly late, missing connections just a couple of the dilemma´s I have faced so far.

Right now I am stuck in the one horse town of Rio Gallegos, paying a fortune for a basic hotel room (everthing else was booked out when I arrived at 4am this morning!) I´m hoping and praying no further problems arise for my bus departure at 8am tomorrow, Christmas Eve? Fingers crossed!!!

But anyway.....here´s wishing you a wonderful Chrissy and New Year! I hope mine is too!


P.S - My blogging has been slack of late, but I promise to post an Argentinian update sometime soon!

Weddings, Engagements and babies!

It´s been a week of celebrations, announcements and surprises!

Katherine and Will were married in Sydney last weekend.

The lovely Kate and Ed announced they are pregnant! Baby number one due early June next year.

And of course my little sister. Nico proposed on Hollands Sinterklaas Day! It will be a trip to Holland early next May for the ceremony and celebrations!

2007 is looking to be quite the year...

A Bolivian / Chilean birthday

This year it was all Bolivian salt flats and Chile´s driest desert in the world to celebrate being another year older. Yes, another year passes but this particular birthday will be one I won´t forget in a hurry!

My day started at 4am. Ungodly time I know, but it was also the final day of an amazing 3day salt flat tour I had been on in the Sth West of Bolivia. The tour is by 4WD with a maximum of 6 people plus your driver come guide. It does appear the days of just me and the boys has come to an end though? This trip was evenly balanced with 3 fun boys, (1 Aussie and 2 Swiss) and 3 fun girls (myself, a kiwi and a very odd, although nice English girl from Manchester)

More commonly known as the Salar de Uyuni, it is the worlds largest salt flat. A salt desert with nothing for miles except glaring white salt blurring in with the horizon and the endless blue sky. Our trip started on the actual salar which is 12,000 square km´s of pure white salt. Another world and very surreal! In the middle of the salar, one of the highlights is amusing yourself for hours with lot´s of trick photography as there is no sense of perspective with the blinding white. We could have stayed there all day taking the silly but fun photo´s where you can appear to be doing anything from sitting in someones hand or popping out of a coke can. Or as the Israeli´s like to do, get naked and make some very questionable yet ¨interesting¨ photo´s??? Gotta love those Israeli´s!

The following days were all mountains, desert, canyons, volcanoes and gorgeous coloured lakes. There were also hundreds of llama´s, the beautiful and dainty Vicuna´s and thousands of pink flamingo´s. During the course of the day the changing light on the desert brings out some spectacular colours, constantly ¨wowing¨you. The final day as mentioned, my birthday, we were up at the crack of dawn to witness a spectacular sunrise over the desert, bringing all those magnificent colours to life yet again. We also visited the geysers, soaked in the natural hot springs and had a final Bolivian breakfast before I made my way down to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.

San Pedro I loved. All remote and hot dry heat. It is in the driest desert in the world after all! The town was expensive but very relaxed. Four of the guys from the salt flat tour also came along to San Pedro. We checked into our hostels, had refreshing cold showers, a bit of down time lazing in the sun & slothing on hammocks before heading out for some celebrating. We indulged in a delicious and pricey meal then bar crawled our way into the early morning hours, consuming lot´s of different cocktails along the way! With a bit of a sore head the following day, it was off for a post birthday lunch with one of the boys from the jungle trip who was also in town. Even more great food and a few more drinks were to be consumed. It was a fantastic few days. A great tour, a great birthday and great company. What more could you possibly ask for!