Up the East Coast

G'day Mate! (Pronounced G'dii Miite) So it's been a while since I've posted last but there is a good reason for that. I was always doing something else, and I could just never find the time or make the time to sit down at a computer for even an hour. Either I was on a tour, seeing the sights, on the beach, on the greyhound, or it may have been too beautiful outside to even consider locking myself indoors. 30 degree tropical beach or a computer? You see what I mean.

But now I made myself some time and I'll tell you what I've been up to. I've since left Sydney and bussed up all the way to Townsville and Magnetic Island, where I am now, about 40 hours away by bus. I'll start in Sydney where I left off last time. On our last day we went to the zoo which was very nice. We saw all the typical Australian animals, such as kangaroos (that could come right up to you!), wombats, koalas, and the platapus. The best thing about the zoo was the spectacular view of downtown Sydney across the harbour. It was great looking at the giraffes with a backdrop of the opera house.

We departed Sydney and left for Newcastle, which was a nice little city. We weren't there for long unfortunatly. But our hostel was amazing. It had a huge recreation room/lounge with leather couchs and chairs, and they even organized a free barbeque at a local bar for the backpackers. That was so much fun. Tons to eat, cheap drinks, live band, and met lots of people.

After that we hopped on the greyhound and ended up in Coffs Harbour. Very nice beaches. I spent most of my time in the water and on the sand, and I got burnt pretty bad in the spots I missed with the sunscreen. I can safely say that I will never miss those spots again. We met some cool people there and went out at night to a lawn bowling club for cheap drinks. Good times were had.

Later Stephanie and I went to Byron Bay, which had (surprise surprise) spectacular beaches. That was really more of a party town. It had great shops and cafes up and down the beachfront and even better bars. If there's something the Aussies did right it's their bars and beer. Even at 11am the outdoor patios are packed and people are drinking. The people here really know how to be lazy, get drunk, and have a good time no matter what they're doing. And I haven't met one Australian who wasn't funny. It must be in their genes. Even the greyhound drivers like to act as local tour guides and crack jokes into the mikerophone as we drive up the coast.

After a few days there we arived in Surfers Paradise. We had to go there just for the name itself, and I was also told by many people in and out of Australia to go there. It's a place where there are endless miles of beaches, countless numbers of surfers, vibrant nightlife and daylife, the people do not wear shoes and everyone has an attitude summed up with the words "no worries." It's a fun place to be but I dont think I could stay too long there. I might turn into a surfer hippie.

When we were done there we booked ourself on a 26 hour bus up to Townsville. We wanted to stop at a few places inbetween but there we no accomodations anywhere. None at all, not even at the lowest dirthole or the highest class hotels. So the made us sad, but now we are happy becasue we are at Magnetic Island, practically a tropical paradise. A short ferry from Townville, this island just by the Great Barrier Reef is a national park with amazing blue and green ocean and littered with beaches. We dont have the time here but they tell us if we follow some of the trails for 4 or 5 kilometres we could have an entire beach all to ourselves. The small island is practically a mountain with tropical trees and wildlife. Our hostel (or should I say resort) is on a 7 acre peace of paradise with a big outdoor pool with hammocks, small cabins that we sleep in, outdoor bar and resturaunt, tenting areas, and even a koala sanctuary. Today we did their tour, saw the local koalas, (Stephanie held one!) and we both saw both held a blue-tounged lizzard, a baby foot-long crocadile, and had a 6-foot python wrap itself around us. I have video. I look like I'm doing the robot becasue I was so nervous. (At least it's not pyrahnas Paulina!)

Thats pretty much our trip so far in a few short words. Tomorrow we bus to Cairns where he have four nights and we are super excited. This is where the fun is. Ie. Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, rainforest tours, and skydiving. What? Skydiving? We'll see.

The Land Down Under

I must say I enjoyed my time in California. It was a nice break from being busy and always having somewhere to go or something to do. It gave me a chance to relax and reorganize my back pack which desperatly needed to be done. About three days ago I left California on a five hour flight to Honolulu and then another ten hours to Sydney. Although I was only in Honolulu for an hour, and though I never left the airport, I can officially say that I was in Hawaii. The airport is set up so you have to walk outside between gates, so I had the chance to go outside and take a deep breath of the hot and humid air.

And now I'm in Sydney and it is truely a diverse and beautiful city. I have three days and four nights here and Stephanie and I are making the most of it. We did the Opera House, the Rocks, Darling Harbour, Royal Botanic Gardens, a ferry around the harbour, Kings Cross, and tomorrow we're going to the zoo. Unfortunatly its raining and it's a bad time to go to the beach, so we will miss it in Sydney but we figure that the whole east coast is beach so we'll have plenty of opertunity for that.

Everywhere I went on the above list has been amazing. The opera house is more impressive than the pictures show. the Royal Botanic gardens are huge and diverse. There's a little rainforest, a little wetlands, wildlife, some of this, that, and tons of green grassy feilds. And Kings Cross, according to the Lonely PLanet guidebook, is "a bizare cocktail of strip joints, prostitution, crime and drugs shaken and stirred. And a handfull of great restaurants, smart cafes, upmarket hotels and backpacker hostels." It's a remarkable place that I couldn't imagine by that description, but once I'm here I could see how it is true.

Our hostel is also very nice and close to the action. It's in the middle of the city centre and walking distance from everything. It is possible that I have done more walking yesterday than any other day in South America (the Inca Trail excluded).

Altogether it's a really good start to Australia. Our hostels are booked through new years, the Greyhound tickets are purchased and the flights are, well, pending. We still have some work to do. Anyway enjoy my newly updated pictures at http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2092937&l=8b8ac&id=58000349. Check back soon when I upload Stephanie's pictures to this album.

It's so nice to use an english keyboard. All the characters are in the right place.

So I made it to California, against all odds. To pick up where I left off, I flew into Lima and arived at 3:00AM. LAB (Bolivian Air) promised me transportation and accomodation once I got to Lima, but they were no where to be found in that airport. No one behimd the counter and no office. So while dodging the scavanger cabbies and allged security guards who wanted to take me outside (scarry) I found a travel agency and made arangenments for a hotel 15 minutes away from the airport. The hotel was in the old colonial district, but all I saw there were McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, major malls, grocery stores, hotels and about five casinos within a two block radius. The next day after returning to the airport my flights to the United States were surprisingly booked, so I hopped on the plane in Lima and it wisked me off to Los Angeles. And of course it was storming in San Fransisco so my flight there was delayed by 3 hours, which meant I would miss the greyhound to see Stephanie. So we made arangements that I would stay at Stephanie's parent's house and wait for her here. Once in San Fransisco I took the BART subway through Oakland, transfered onto a bus that took me to a train that took me to Tracy, California. I met an old black biker grandmother who was very sweet and helped me out a lot along the way. And thats what I did, and thats where I am now. A full day of planes, trains, and automobiles. And subway, and monorail to add to that list.

Now thats thats out of the way I would like to finally talk about my last few days in South America. The last part of the trip was in Sucre, Bolivia, where I did two things: Silver mining and more mountain biking. The mines were cool. They looked very dangerous and we were thinking that tourists shouldn't be let in there becasue of all the large ventilation holes where if we slipped we could have plumeted down through the mountain we were in. Anyway were all carying crackers, coca leaves, and dynamite to give as gifts to the miners we saw along the way. But we did save one stick of dynamite to blow up ourselves! It was lit in a cave about 100 metres away, and then we all sat together in silence covering our ears waiting for the explosion. And then we heard it, and it was so powerful that it shook our bones. Then we had to run out of there before the wave of dust hit us. It was fun.

I went mountain biking again on my very last day. It was different this time as we rode down dirt roads on the side of the mountains and not skinny trails. It was safer becasue of this, but we went really fast! We got the bottom of the mountain, loaded the bikes on the trailor, and then drove to another mountain to do it again. We did this five times and it was a blast. See my pictures of the mining and biking at
http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2091295&l=8e0b5&id=58000349

Anyway that's it for Bolivia and Peru. I had a great time, had some amazing experiences, and met some incredible people from all around the world. It is something that I am really glad I did and I know that I will charish my memories forever. And I have the pictures to prove it. Now I am in California and I leave for the land down under on Saturday. See you there!

Just get me out of here

So my tour of Peru and Bolivia has ended and emotional goodbyes were said. It has been a month since I've arived and I've met some really good people on the way. It was sad to leave, but at the same time I am excited for the next leg of my journy. All I really want after an exhausting month is to sit back and relax, and let the planes peacefully take me away.

But then of course this is Bolivia, and this is not the case. I am writing to you from the airport, which will be my home for at least the next eleven hours. Here's the story: I went to a travel agency to get them to confirm my flight yesterday. Turns out it was delayed out of Bolivia by 2 hours. That would have given me 1 hour to change flights in Lima. So I cinfirmed again this morning and it was delayed again by 4 hours. That means I would miss both my connecting flights to LA and then to San Fransisco. The advice the travel agent gave me: ''Go to the airport now and get MAD.'' Getting mad is the only way things get done in this part of the world. So I came here to the airport 13 hours early to bitch and complain to make sure I can make my connecting flights. It took 3 hours of hard core yelling using english and broken spanish. You have never seen me this mad before. I have never even seen me this mad before. I didn't know I had it in me. They suggested so many things, they wanted to send me all over the world, ie. Chilie, New York, etc just to make it eventually to San Fransisco. So then the manager of Bolivian Air came out and pretty much told me to fuck off and that I would have to pay for all my flights again after I get to Lima. I said NO YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR MY FLIGHTS AFTER I GET TO LIMA, IT IS YOUR FAULT! Then she stormed off and all these scenereos went racing through my mind of calling my travel agency in Canada, and getting my insurance involved. And just then, the guy I was originally speaking to finally gave me a new intinerary that would have me fly out of here at 12 tonight, get a voucher for a hotel and transportation for the night in Lima, and then fly to LA and then SF on the same flights but the next day. And then that was that. So things currently seem to be worked out but I am still stressed becasue I know things cannot possibly run smoothly in the near future. Well at least they have an internet cafe and a Burger King in the Airport to keep me occupied.

I origininally wanted to use this entry to write about my last few days in Bolivia and a general wrap up of South America, but that will have to wait a few days untill I get to California. I just can't think about anything else now.

Anyway I hope you are all doing well, I love hearing from you so keep the comments and emails coming! California here I come (I hope).

We´re in Bolivia?

Almost a week ago we crossed we said goodbye to Peru and entered Bolivia, in true Bolivian style I might add. First of all Bolivia is polically unstable. The socialist president wants to make constitutional reforms but the rich elite class are putting up a strong counter attack. As we approached the country rots and protests broke out and closed the border that we were supposed to cross. That cost us an extra 2 hour bus ride to another borer, and also cost us our visit to Copacabana. When we finnally did walk through the border through no mans land we waited 3 hours for a bus to pick us up to take us to La Paz. Once on the bus, one of the tires overheated so the driver sent someone out to pour cold water on it. And then the tire exploded with a thunderous pop. Just a regular Bolivian welcome.

Anyway La Paz is a beautiful and dangerous city. It is the highest capital city in the world at over 3000 metres above sea level. We walked around, enjoyed ourselves, and even found a burger king. We left the city 2 days later with a 12 hour bus and train ride and arived at the salt flats.

The salt flats is basically a dried lake, and all that is left is 100s of miled of flat white blinding salt. We drove through them in 4x4 jeeps and saw some incredible things like a hotel completely made from salt, dried coral islands, 12 metre cacti, and yes, lots and lots of salt. I now know know that the world can never run out of salt. It was also a great opertunity to take some great big\small pictures.

See these at http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2088004&l=5b3c0&id=58000349

Theres so much more we did over the next 4 days traveling by jeep that I might as well copy my intinerary and post it, becasue there is no way I can tell you everything. Here´s a small list:
View abandoned 'train cemetary', see many lagoons with many falmingos, go to incredible rock formations in the middle of the desert and do some rock climbling, stay in 8 room doorms where we drink all night, swim in natural thermal hot springs at zero degrees celcius, walk through thermal geysers (while avoiding the bubbling vlocano mud), see a turquoise and bright red coloured lagoon, see another rock valley with more climbing, go up to an active volcano which is actually smoking, see Chilian mountians just a km or 2 away, and countless hours of driving off road (which could be anything from flat desert to rivers to huge stones that I thought only a hummer can handle).

One of the highlights of my entire trip came yesterday. We went mountain biking down a mountain. It was very technical and on a very small, sandy and steep trail. Don't mess up or you'd fall off the cliff! It was a 100% adrenaline rush. It was a single thin trail, about 3 hours to complete, 4700 metres above sea level to 3700m at the bottom of the mountain. I have never done anything like it.

More pictures at http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2088007&l=c0026&id=58000349

So thats my story over the past 5 days and that is also why I havent posted anything for so long. Today is a relaxed day in the city of Potosi. (Gelling here consisted of a 7 hour bus along the bumpiest road in Bolivia, along with getting out of the bus in the middle of the night to push it to jump start it, again in true Bolivian style.) In a cupple hours I go to a silver mine to blow up some dynamite. Seriously. Talk to you again in Sucre or La Paz.