A Not-so-Wonderful Welcome Home

Our stop-over in Auckland proved a trial, over 4 hours long and with the announcement that for some strange reason which didn't make any sense at all, 100 pieces of luggage were offloaded from the plane to be sent on a later flight - of course when we arrived in Brisbane we discovered that ours was amongst those left behind. Next came a taxi ride through drenching rain with a cabbie who spoke an unidentifiable language and needed directions to get us to our car which we had left with Max's parents.

It made us laugh to think that in all our travels through Antarctica, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru we didn't have one hiccup with luggage or taxi's in places that we had read so many stories of delays and rip-offs.

But...

It was lovely to see Len and Dulcie looking so well and 24 hours after leaving our hotel in Santiago we walked through our front door to discover a beautiful card and a bunch of flowers on the table from Pauline and Graeme.

there is no place like home.

P.S.  our luggage arrived about 13 hours later!

A Wonderful Last Day in South America

 Our last day was spent in Santiago Chile with the first people we met on our holiday. Carolina and Zoltan live here and took us to lunch at a beautiful restaurant set in parklands just out of the city.

We talked and laughed and reminisced - ate good food and of course drank great wine and my last Pisco Sour.

We hope to meet again, maybe in New Zealand.

A Siesta, and off to the airport for our flight home.

Zoltan and Carolina in Torres del Paine NP

Machu Picchu

A thousand photographs, ten thousand words cannot explain this citadel in the majestic Andes mountains.  All I can write about is our/my experience...

Our experience was overwhelming.  We saw it in all it´s moods, bright sunshine, mist, clouds and even a thunderstorm.  Each change in the weather brought it´s own unique quality to the ruins and the mountains. We walked, we sat and pondered, we marvelled and wondered, we watched hundreds of people queue to enter at 5.30am and thousands arrive during the day and spread to all corners,  yet there were times when you found yourself completely isolated and alone.  Those times of solitude and peace allowed your mind to attempt to absorb what your senses were conveying... impossible really.

I am so glad we went there for a couple of days.  The first day you are gob-smacked, and we had a wonderful tour from Luz, our guide.  She told the stories and revealed some of the knowledge of this lost empire.  The second day we could wander and discover at our liesure.

What was amazing to me is that everyone reacted in very similar ways - people from all over the world, all ages, photographing first, talking next and then a quietness overtook them as they finally realised where they were and the power of the mountains and what had been accomplished by the Inca´s began to soak in.

The Hyram Bingham Train

An Orient Express service to Machu Picchu... need I say any more?  No?  Well you know me...

The train was immaculate, the service impecccable, the decor straight out of an Agatha Christie novel ... we were seated at our table looking down on the Urubamba River rushing it´s way toward the mountains, offered a champagne and the train gently rolled out of the station. I won´t bore you with details of the fabulous meal or the spectacular scenery, suffice to say we arrived on time after a splendid journey.

The return trip was something else.  David and Jill (from Scotland, whom we had met the previous day at Macchu Pichu) were seated right near us, and the bantering and fun began.  We adjourned to the bar/observation car for a drink where a guitarist and a singer, who was also drumming on a large hollow box, were providing the entertainment.  It wasn´t long before we were the entertainment.  David was given the maracas, someone else a tambourine, I was given a hollow box with a lid and a stick (YES I had to do two things at once!) and Max was given the teeth... yep, the jawbone of an ass to be precise, the jaw bone with teeth... which he was shown how to play.  We beat the rhythm while the man sang Elvis Presley songs in Spanish and a few well known Spanish songs  (Solero, La Bamba)  encouraging us to sing along.

Surreal, in Peru, in a luxury train, in the Andes Mountains, surrounded by the ancient world of the Inca, singing Jail House Rock in Spanish while plaing a wooden box with lid and stick and the jawbone from a donkey.

Cusco Peru

Wonderful.
The world is indeed an amazing place when you are sleeping in a monastery built in 1692 on foundations of Inca stone buildings, walking ancient cobblestone streets with a procession of dancing young people leading an icon of the Virgin Mary, bartering with a shop keeper who saw you coming from miles away in the age old tradition of ripping off tourists, visiting a church with gold encrusted picture frames, some made from melted down Inca gold, and getting a smile from a young street boy who recognised you from 4 days ago when you took his photo (for a dollar of course) when he posed with Pablo Picasso, his llama.

Smile!  Maybe the llama speaks English too.

Argentina

Just a quick note again, life is hectic when you are on holidays.  Iguassu was a wonderful experience ... and bizarre going from ice and snow to tropical heat, jungle, thousands of butterflies and colourful macaws.

We have just completed a guided tour of Buenos Aries, well a small part.  Statues and buildings magnificent, poverty and wealth abounds often on opposite corners of the street and the Tango Show we went to last night was out of this world... in fact it was set in the 1940`s and 50`s and the costumes and music were as fantastic as the dancing was fast, furious and very sexy.

On to Cuzco tomorrow, maybe then I will have time to write more about his exciting holiday and share some of the thousands of photos.

Iguassu Falls Brazil