Wine and Steak in Argentina

Ah, a new continent awaits me! I've got an old friend to travel with, a old language that I barely speak, and new foods to try out. I'm looking forward to it though I'd be just as well off going home to rest. Oh well, when else will I have the chance to wander around South America while I'm still in my 20s? Never; at least now when I add on the age conditional. Ok, so what have I been up to?

The flight over to Argentina from New Zealand was unpleasant. There were 9 flights, on 5 airlines, that stretched over 3 days. Of course since I crossed the international date line it looked like 2 days on a calendar but trust me, it was no cake walk. I went from Christchurch to Auckland, Fiji, Samoa, Honolulu, Portland, Los Angeles, Huston, Santiago, and Cordoba. In Hawaii I had a 6 hour layover and had to through an additional security interview before switching to a domestic flight. I thought that in the interview, the officer sounded more jealous than suspicious. In Los Angeles, I had a 14 hour layover so my friend Cindy picked me up from the airport at midnight and we got together with Jesse for some late night and brunch quality time before I had to get back on a plane.

Eventually I got to Cordoba in Northern Argentina and my luggage made it as well. It's a miracle. My luck didn't end there; I also somehow avoided paying the $140 visa fee. I think that the Cordoba airport doesn't have a collection point since 99% of visitors would choose to start in Buenos Aires. It's true though that my northerly route is going to cause me to miss out on both Patagonia and Buenos Aires (the two best parts of Argentina) but I suppose that I can come back some day on a 2 week holiday. I've got a couple places that I had to leave like that including Croatia + Slovenia and N. Thailand + Laos. I guess you just can't see everything in one shot but I've covered more ground than most people will ever see in their lifetime. Hopefully that's useful for something but I can't imagine what. Mostly it just makes me discontent with my own country, or certain aspects of it at least. I really shouldn't read the news... ever.

Anyways, Cordoba is a pretty nice place... much nicer than I was expecting but then I've had a pretty skewed impression of Latin America since I've only ever been to Central America and the Cuzco Trail through Peru and Bolivia. They're all very poor places and shouldn't be considered on the same level as Argentine, South America's most prosperous country... at least historically. I hear that in the 1920s it had one of the top 3 standards of living in the world but 80+ years of alternating left and right wing governments created chaos. Today it still feels poor compared to Europe or America, but it's decidedly modern. You see people jogging all over the place and otherwise dressed very fashionably. Everyone looks so healthy! Of course Cordoba is a college town so this too makes it look more fit, but still it's remarkable.

After checking into the hostel that Jowen told me about, I got cleaned up and a couple hours later I ran into him in the lobby. He still looks the same to me, but I guess its just been like 6 months. We went out for some good steaks to celebrate our reunion and to catch up on what we've been up to. Jowen did some more time in Germany after we split, before touring France, Spain, and Morocco. He didn't love Morocco but has been enjoying Argentina since he arrived a month before me and stayed in Buenos Aires for 3 weeks taking Spanish classes. It paid off because he's pretty decent. His general plan now is to travel North along the West coast through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and into Columbia before going home. It'll take him 1 to 3 months longer than me, but he's not got a ticket and isn't sure when exactly he wants to go home though he is feeling a little bit restless like myself.

We didn't stay out too late because I was pretty tired after my journey but here in Argentina people stay out very late. I think they have more energy than normal since they take a siesta in the afternoon for a few hours, but they don't even come out to the bars until 2 am. I think it's crazy but it's not so unusual to stay out until 5 or 6 in the morning. Siesta is critical to the plan in these parts. This next day however, we did take a siesta in the afternoon and wandered around town viewing some churches and eating empanadas. There are empanada shops everywhere and many sell at least 40 flavors though most of them are combinations of ground beef, ham, chicken, peppers, cheese, olives, and spices. I can't get enough of them! I'm also sure that will change.

That night Jowen and I went out to some bars with a New Yorker chef from our hostel and an Israeli backpacker. Nice guys. I spent particularly a lot of time in the afternoon chatting with the Israeli and a Syrian who also shares my room. They're both really cool and love to taunt each other over all the politics. It's good natured though. The next day we spent more time in the morning doing just the same before wandering the city looking for an audio splitter so that Jowen and I can watch movies on my laptop. This was of course in preparation for the first of many unfortunately long bus rides in Argentina. We got on our bus at 9pm and arrived in the city of Mendoza around 7 the next morning.

Mendoza is a pretty smallish city in the heart of Argentina's wine and beef region. What a place to be! After an earthquake leveled the city in the 1830s it was rebuilt with wide streets and many parks for the rubble and people to spill into. Today those streets are tree lined and filled with activity when the people are out. We spent the day napping and exploring the many parks and squares of the city. It hasn't got as nice of churches and monuments as Cordoba but it's still very charming. Of course we made plans to do the main attraction of the city the next day.

Early in the morning (or noon as some would call it) we took a taxi 10k outside the city to an extremely popular bike rental place called Senor Hugo. It's smack in the middle of a cluster of a dozen or more vineyards. Some places also draw in visitors with chocolate and olive oil tastings. That stuff is for girls though, we just wanted the wine. That said, we visited two wineries right away and had some of the region's specialty, Malbec wine. It's a deep purple grape that makes rich red wines and is also associated with Bordeaux mixes. Any time I brush my teeth after a night of drinking the stuff, the spit comes out purple.

We bought a couple bottles from the two tasting rooms we visited and dropped them off at Hugo's so that we could go fetch more. Hugo poured us some free glasses of his own wine and we took a spin on a tandem bicycle. They're a lot harder to ride than I expected as they're very unstable at low speeds and we went back to our normal bikes after a while. We had time to visit one more winery in the afternoon after lunch and it was pretty great. We had some desert wines, sparking wines, and of course more Malbec. In the end we came home with 5 bottles (priced between $5-$15 each) and made another fine dinner of Argentine beef back at the hostel. They had a copy of the Risk board game and we played a couple games of it each night at this hostel.

I guess that we needed some exercise because we settled on a trip to the zoo the next day. It was a very long walk up into the hills to reach it. There was a huge and unkempt park leading up to it that must have been several square miles in size. We were warned to avoid a few parts of it that house unsavory characters. The zoo was nice and had really a lot of pumas and bears. Many of them were kept alone and seemed lonely. Maybe I should have gotten in there with them. Also we noticed that it had HUGE herds of small herbivores near the entrance. They must have had 600 goats, deer, and other tasty herbivores. Surely they must be raising them to feed their large number of carnivores. We had a good time and met a couple amusing characters along the way.

That night we of course played more risk, cooked some beef (costs around $5 a pound for a good cut), and chatted with the other hostelers. I remember that we talked with some Dutch girls, Marion and Donya, and said that we might run into them again in a few days in the city of Salta. Well, we did so that's notable but first we went out to see a more obscure place along the way, the Valle de Luna.

To get there we took a bus in the morning with a couple connections along the way to the place called San Agustin de Valle Fertil. It's a tiny hamlet near to the park entrance for Valle de Luna. The area is famous for it's unusual rock formations which must be accessed with the help of a car. I'd been looking into buying a cheap car in Argentina to use for the rest of the trip but there are legal problems that prevent it so forget that. It's illegal for foreigners to buy a used car in Argentina and take it outside of the country. That's an issue certainly. A light rain started coming in as we arrived in the hostel in Valle Fertil and this proved to be an issue but we forgot about that and enjoyed some BBQ for dinner and chatted up a German and Italian girl sharing the hostel with us. Oh wait, I spent much of the evening playing some game (Plants vs Zombies) that Jowen gave me. It's been a long time since I'd played a video game.

The light rain had turned the dirt roads in the park into a thick mud and it was to be closed to visitors for the next few days so the tour of the park had to be called off. There was nothing else to do in this village and buses only come every other day so we rushed to the bus station to buy the last two seats headed North and waited out the day until 3 am to get the bus out. In the evening after dinner we actually had 10 guests in the hostel and we threw a little party. I declined a tango lesson but I won a few free drinks when I played some songs and generally had a nice time. I'm looking pretty awkward in these photos lately since I've decided to grow a big silly mustache as part of my South American venture. Trust me, it looks awful!

The bus ride to the next city, Salta, was very long had we had to change buses and find new onward tickets in two other cities before reaching our destination around 6pm. I was exhausted by that point but we clamored over through the town to reach our planned hostel on the south end of town before it got too dark. They still had a couple beds for us though we didn't have reservations since we didn't expect to be here that day. It's the high season for travel since the local students are on summer break and reservations really are necessary. That night Jowen and I ran into the Dutch girls again and shared some beers with them, our Irish roommate Erin, and a couple others at the hostel bar. That was fun.

Next morning Erin joined us to tour the city while Marion and Donya had booked a wine tour outside town. The first stop was the city square surrounded by tall and fine business buildings, hotels, and a church. They're the best looking buildings that I'd seen in Argentina so far and I was pretty impressed. This city is just gorgeous. The main church on the square is the Iglacia Cathedral which houses the ashes of General Guemes, an independence war hero. Also on the square is the high altitude archeology museum.

This museum named MAAM houses three Inca mummies found on the peak of a volcano over 6000 meters high. The dry cold air almost perfectly preserved the bodies and today they're on display along with many Inca burial treasures. One of the mummies on display is called 'Lightning Girl' since she's been burned by a strike before death and was around 6 years old. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but the small museum was really interesting and a little shocking with their lifelike mummies.

We also rode a gondola to the top of a nearby mountain to see the view of the city and after a walk down we rambled into the large and stately park that dominates the area between the bus station and downtown. There's small lake with paddle boats for rent and we had some empenadas and panchos (hotdogs with onion, olives, corn, salsa, chips, and mustard on top).

In the evening, we met up with Marion and Donya again and the 5 of us went out for dinner at a parilla. It's a kind of restaurant that features steaks and sides (which 4 of us got) but Jowen got the traditional parilla meat platter. It's got a festive mixture of short ribs, blood sausage, kidneys, intestine, and liver on a hot iron plate. I tried the sausage, kidney, and tripe and though I thought it was pretty good for what it was, I had a hard time enjoying it. The dutch girls are headed up towards Bolivia and Peru on nearly an identical schedule to us and they talked us into joining them into Bolivia. I think they thought it would be unsafe for them to be alone.

So now it's the next day, we've got tickets to take an overnight bus to the border and then to go to a small town near the salt flats. Should be a good time and I'm looking forward to some cheaper prices. After I'm done with this blog post I'll finish getting ready for the border crossing (finding cash and food) and we'll see something new. Should be good.

Wet and Wild in the West

As I'm writing this now, it seems like ages since I spent that last long rainy day in a hostel on the base of Mt Cook, but then, it probably has been a while. Counting back, it's been a week, That's not so bad, but Diane and I have covered a lot of miles and have done a lot of things so it's only with the aid of the pictures that I'll remember it all.

In the morning, with the weather clear, we set off to do our much anticipated hike to Sealy Tarns. Oh, a 'tarn' is basically a tiny pond on a steep mountainside. Maybe it has something to do with glaciation too (everything else in this place does) but I doubt it. The weather was great, cool and sunny, but the hike was steep as hell. Other than the intro, it was a solid hour and a half of steep switchbacks taking us ever higher. Of course the views were great, and we had such a great look at Hooker Glacier that we didn't have to do that one afterward anymore. Of course, I got it in my head that I should go swimming in one of the terminal lakes nearby.

After a nice lunch at the tarns of tuna sandwiches, apples, and dark chocolate, we made the knee breaking descent back to the van. On the way down, I noticed blueish berries growing on low bushes and I thought that it all looked very familiar so I ate a couple and found that I liked them. They tasted kind of like a weak blackberry mixed with rose petals. Diane had some too, but I ate several hand fulls. They weren't that great, but I didn't get sick so no problems to report.

My knees were still shaking when we got to the bottom and my persistence convinced Diane to accompany me to the glacial lake since it's just a 20 minute walk from our camp. Once we got there, I hid behind a boulder to change since there were a lot of tourists going by on the nearby easy trail, and I waded through a field of grass and boulders to get to the lake. As I got to the edge, I saw a small iceberg drift out into the raging river and get swept away. Why would I get into that cold and dirty looking water? The deep grey color is from glacial rock dust. Anyways, I found a nice rock to slip into the water from and I dunked myself over my head four times, drank some of it (delicious), and dried off. Yea, it was damn cold.

I think that we'd done enough in the Mt Cook area and we were itching to see something new, so that afternoon we left the park and drove to a town several hours away called Omarama. There's not much of note there, except a great speak shearing show at the Wrinkly Ram but we weren't there at the right time to catch it.

Oh, this next day wasn't too much fun, though it had a few nice points. We had to drive from Omarama to the town of Te Anau which is a hell of a long ways away. The highlights included a quick stop in Lindis Valley for its fruit. There, we bought a box of the best apricots I'd ever had, and a large bag of super fresh Bing cherries. They were so crisp, you'd never believe they were Bing. Also we stopped at many scenic vistas to stretch our legs, but I really just wanted to get to Te Anau to try some pie shop that's recommended in Lonely Planet.

Pies are such an English thing. When I think of them, many sweet varieties come to mind, but out here they're mostly all savory and full of meat. Most shops have the same stuff, but the ones at this place were a bit larger than most and at $5 seemed like a good value. The flavors included steak and cheese, steak kidney, steak bacon mushroom, chicken bacon, satay chicken, cream chicken, Thai chicken, sausage roll, mince (ground beef), Cornish (mince w/ potatoes, carrot, and peas in sort of BBQ sauce), and the "world's best" venison pie. I've seen that they raise herds of Red Deer like cattle here in NZ. This is a picture of my steak and cheese pie, which was mostly just huge chunks of prime rib in a cheese sauce. Diane got the venison, which was the same but gamier. Nice. Maybe these would sell well back home since they're really bad for you.

Also in Te Anau, we booked a cruise for Milford Sound at the local tourism center. They've got these government run 'iSites' that freely give advice, weather reports, make phone calls for you, and offer showers for a few bucks. Well, the weather report predicted clear skies the next day and all of hell's fury thereafter. Hearing that, we booked for the next day and made our way in that direction. That night we camped aside a large lake and enjoyed an unusual array of sun and clouds. We also had our first encounter with NZ's dreaded sandflys. They're truly awful. They looks like small flies, but they bite like mosquitoes, and itch for longer. Worst of all, they come in great numbers all day and swarm you if you ever stop for a moment. Also, when they bite they hurt a bit right at that moment so you notice every bite and that makes it even worse. Also, they don't make any noise to let you know they're there. Just awful these things, and they inhabit all of the West coast of South Island and that's where we're headed for the next week or so. To make things worse, there were lots of mosquitoes too keeping the sandflies company.

In the morning, the ceiling of the van was covered in mosquitoes. We took paper towels and smashed the unusually calm bugs. When we finished there were at least 40 bloody stains across the ceiling of our lovely new model van. I hope that we can clean it effectively before returning the rental. Crouching in the van with the lights on for 15 minutes before bed snatching all the flies wasn't enough it seems. The sandflies are rather slow and can be snatched from the air. So anyways, we started our drive toward Milford Sound.

The road going out there was built in the 30s with the purpose of exploiting the last bits of forest still standing in NZ but by the time it had finished the idea of environmentalism had just started to come into fashion and the whole area was set aside for protection. In this area, known as Fjordland, there is an unbelievable amount of rain deposited each year. I heard about a town that gets 15 meters a year. All that water is effective both at keeping people and agriculture out as well as supporting supreme biodiversity. Simply put, it's an area of steep mountains carved out by eons of glaciers and rife with waterfalls from the ridiculous abundance of rain.

The road, 150k in each direction with no towns in between, leading out to Milford Sound is in good condition though clogged with tour buses. It follows the flattest routes possible and crosses many grassy valleys surrounded by mountains and occasionally has some steep canyons to span. One nice stop was at the Mirror Lakes, a series of small swampy ponds that reflect the nearby peaks and sport a mess of birds. We stopped at many more vistas than I care to describe since we had a late afternoon boat scheduled and plenty of time to make it there.

For lunch we visited a remote outpost called Gunn Camp, named after a famous local rancher and hunter of sorts, David Gunn. This is not a government run visitors center, but rather a last holdout for a group of people that have been living on this isolated land for generations and now make a living selling cokes to passing tourists who drive 20k down a dead end dirt road to see them. We strolled through the one room museum and read a lot of newspaper clippings on the walls. Most were sad stories about the severe hardships that early settlers to the sounds went through and many more were about David Gunn. The area was settled by westerners about 140 years ago, but the people who came had little farming or bush experience and most left after several years of toil. There were a lot of stores of families dying of fevers, having no contact with the outside, and burying each other without shovels. David Gunn was in his 70s when he died around 1950. Experienced in everything that could go wrong out there, he finally died when his horse slipped in a flooded river and his grandson drowned with him.

Later in the afternoon we reached Homer Tunnel, a 1.5k hole through the mountain blasted out in the 30s and then widened for larger vehicles in the 50s. It's just 1 lane wide in parts, so a traffic light on each end changes the direction of the tunnel every 15 minutes. It's great fun to go through since it's walls are uneven, the road severely bumpy, it's at a steep angle, and lots of water drips off the ceiling. It felt like a theme park ride really. Before we went through it, we stopped in the parking lot and admired some Kea that came looking for handouts. Kea are the world's only alpine parrots and are dressed in an unusually drab olive green feathers. I hear their under wings are red but I've never seen one fly. They're very curious birds and come to tourist hangouts to find snacks but a million signs discourage feeding them as what we eat just isn't good for them. I hear they also like to tear the rubber of windshields if nobody is around.

Finally we got to the sound after passing through a couple more natural wonders I won't mention because the pictures suck. Milford Sound is just one of 13 different sounds in Fjordland, but this one is the prettiest one that's somewhat easily accessible so it gets half a million visitors a year for its trouble. Fjords are bays created by glacial grinding while sounds are bays created by river valleys that are lowered into the sea by tectonic shifts. Technically, all of these sounds are actually fjords and are incorrectly named. Realizing this mistake many decades later, NZ decided to call the whole region Fjordland and call it good enough. I'm still going to call it a sound though.

We took a shower at a nearby hotel (the only one out there since there's almost nothing there except a dock and a small airplane runway) and found our way over to the boat. It was a nice new one, and the captain took us out to sea and back, stopping briefly to douse us under a few different waterfalls. It took about 2 and a half hours and didn't have more than 8 other people on the large boat since the later afternoon time is pretty unpopular since you'd have to spend the night out there if you didn't want a very long and windy drive in the dark. That's fine with us though, especially since that time slot is discounted. Also, I talked one of the crew to load my satchel with unsold sandwiches at the end of the cruise. No cooking for us tonight!

Man, that cruise was super beautiful. The highest peak along the edge of the water was the 1700 meter Miter Peak but a lot of the rocky crags looked equally tall and many had snow on top. That's a bit unusual for a sea cruise. The water was pretty smooth, though a terrible wind had kicked up, and only the endless supply of free coffee kept us warm on the deck. Coffee flew everywhere in that wind but I hadn't had more than a couple cups in the last few weeks so I jumped on it. Coffee is expensive out here. At the mouth of the sound, the water got shallow from the glacial moraine deposits and the waves got large. We didn't go any further and turned back. After landing, we got to our camp site an hour before sunset and chatted up a Dutch couple over dinner. They're traveling for 6 months, but to more expensive places than me. After NZ they're headed out to California.

A couple days of getting bitten up by the sandflies was enough for now and we decided to make a break for civilization. With that in mind we went toward the much hyped Queenstown. It's got a population around 30k, but it's one of the larger cities on the South Island with a population like that. The city is located in a rather sparse lake valley, surrounded by steep rocky mountains. One of the ranges overhead is called The Remarkables and hosts a nearby ski resort. The town takes some inspiration from Aspen in its vibe, but instead of expensive beer and tasteful clothing, they have expensive beer and extreme sports. Yes, bungee jumping was invented here and pretty much everything that could be classed as extreme is located in this one spot. Of course, since it's got such a reputation it's gotten very expensive and was too much for me to bear. A single jump off the best bungee in town is $200, but some lesser ones go for a little over $100. A skydive is $400, and I don't think that I saw anything that costs less than $100.

We parked our van at the one holiday park within walking range of town and went exploring. When we went back to the car to get more warm clothes, we met yet another Dutch couple and shared some drinks before heading out for dinner. Diane and I have had countless recommendations to get a Fergburger here in Queenstown. Many people said it was the best thing in all of NZ. Well, I had the 'Big Al' burger, which had 2*1/4 pound patties (cooked rare on special request), a mound of cheese, more bacon than I'd ever seen on a burger, 2 fried eggs, sliced beetroot (common on burgers in OZ and NZ, and very good), all the veg, and a sort of ketchup/BBQ sauce. It was massive (it should be for $13) and I wolfed it down along with a Diet Coke... because I'm on a diet. I don't know if it was the best burger ever, but certainly the best since I'd left America. I felt great afterward surprisingly, but not much room for beer. Oh well, I nursed one cider as we watched several hours of the Australian Open in an upscale bar. They're all upscale around here.

In the morning we wanted to leave Queenstown but we hadn't done any extreme sports as of yet. It's an issue of money so we compromised with our budgets and took a gondola ride up to the top of a mountain overlooking the city and lake. Up there they've got a pretty great set of luge tracks, and we rode down them a couple times. They get going pretty fast and can bank pretty well but never get too fast. Oh well, it was fun and WAY cheaper than anything else. I also bought myself some NZ socks at the gift shop. I think that it's turning into a theme since I also got some 'tasteful' socks in Amsterdam. It's tough to find them though... same goes for the pins on my satchel.

After getting out of Queenstown we headed towards Wanaka going through Arrowtown. Its a cute little tourist trap that's got a main street full of wooden shops peddling wool products, jade jewelry, and expensive confections. I liked it, but just for the 30 minutes that we spent wandering and splitting a satay chicken pie. From there we continued on to Wanaka which is a small lakeside town that's got a reputation as a discounted Queenstown. I'd say that it's really nothing like it, though you can do many extreme sports from there but the bar scene isn't even close. We settled in at a holiday park and passed the night cooking and watching Taken in the shared TV room.

Here's some pics of naggy road signs. Early that morning we got out of the park to visit the internet cafe at a different hostel nearby. I finished up my ticketing details there and I'm pretty relieved that I'm all sorted. I had bought a ticket a few days earlier to go on to Fiji after NZ but had second thoughts after it was all paid for. I was scheduled to stay there for a month which is far too long for some chain of tropical islands and there wouldn't be any other tourists there since it was out of season and the weather would be horrible. Why did I buy the ticket to begin with? Well, Fiji is the ONLY cheap place to travel to on the way back to the US and it's a pretty logical stopping point. Well, after much thought I changed the ticket to take me to Argentina instead where I'll meet up with Jowen. You remember him, the Canadian that I'd traveled with In Egypt, Syria, Czech, and Germany. It's going to be great down there, but I've got the worlds worst plane ticket to get there. 9 flights on 5 airlines in 48 hours. I only pray that my luggage makes it. Plus, I've got a 14 hour layover in LAX and I won't let myself leave the airport lest I visit home before the trip is over.

There's a strange attraction in this area that caught out eye, a large roadside establishment called Puzzling World. The main room is full large table scattered with mind puzzles of all types including those ring and horseshoe puzzles, sliding wooden tiles, towers of Hanoi, and many many more. We paid to enter their hall of illusions and a huge outdoor labyrinth. I don't know what to say about the place, but it was a lot of fun and pretty challenging.

That night we watched the new Social Network movie at a pretty great local theater in Wanaka called El Paradiso. It's got a very homemade feel, with lots of second hand couches, a VW bug, and some folding chairs filling the room. Every movie is split up with an intermission where they throw open the doors so the smell of fresh baked cookies can drift through. They also have dinners like pizzas ready at intermission if you ordered before but we just took some ice cream back to the couch. We both liked the theater and the movie so it was a nice night.

Finished with Wanaka, we set off to visit the West coast of the country. It's a wet place having an average of 7 meters of rain a year, and pretty sparsely populated. It's got 9% of NZ's land but under 1% of the population. That's because up until the highways were built 50 years ago it suffered from extreme isolation and ever worse weather. It must have been a hell for the early settlers. Remember that it's also home to the thickest populations of sandflies and mosquitoes.

I guess this sign is kind of naggy too. We made a detour to visit the isolated community of Jackson Bay at the far Southern end of the coastal highway. Only about 50 people live there, but it's got a great seafood restaurant in a small shed and some easy hikes to the coast. After having some fresh fish and chips we walked through the fern tree filled rain forest to a rocky beach. There was a dead penguin there but I was hoping to see a live one. At this time of year they come to the shore to molt before they return to swim the seas for 2 more months eating and adding fat for the winter. I guess they sleep in the waves. It was a cute town but too quiet to stand living in. I'm sure that everyone living there is a fisherman.

A couple hundred more kilometers rested between us and the Fox Glacier so we kept on moving. There was a great rest stop with some nature walks that we hit in the late afternoon. The sea was raging and putting down thick layers of foam on the beach that didn't fade away for some reason. I love the way it shook like jelly in the wind. We also took a stroll through a swamp on a wooden planked path. I love those... such effort just for a path. It was such a lovely area in the golden afternoon light and I really hated to leave it for the road again. You know, I really like driving though, especially after missing it for so long, and another hour on the road doesn't break my spirit.

Along the way we made a reservation to do a skydive at the Fox Glacier the next day. It started raining a little bit as we checked into the holiday park so we called it an evening, made dinner, and went to bed easily without thinking about skydiving too much. It just makes me nervous if I do.

The morning weather looked nice at first but then some clouds moved in and our flight was canceled since they can't jump us through any clouds for whatever reason. We met a three young guys traveling together back at the hostel and ened up spending most of the day with them. Their skydive was scrubbed as the rain started pounding so we spent the afternoon cooking coco, eating cookies, and eventually playing cards while driking as much of my rum as we could. I bought a few bottles at the airport since I knew that booze is expensive in NZ but this stuff is just too strong and foul tasting for us to handle. If I get a few more guys helping me though... it's not so difficult. The card games lasted late into the night, and the two dutch guys got sick but the German and I were fine.

The Dutch guys are brothers that go by Reno and Paul. One is 19 and the other 22 and seem to have more money than sense. I like their good spirit though. The German, Mathias, is a little bit more reserved but that gives him an air of competancy and experiencve that doesn't seem deserved I think. The three of them are headed towards Christchurch on roughtly the same schedule as us so I think that we'll travel together for a while.

The next day didn't pan out any better. Diane and I had a flight schedued for 10 am but that was scrubbed for fog on the runway. The guys had their 11 flight canceled too so we waited around for much of the day checking with the flight company from time to time. At least we made our way out to see the Fox glacier. It's one of the two largest on the coast and ends nearly at sea level. These days the glacier is retreating a bit, slowly of course, but it's still an impressive sight and a lot more attractive than the ones on Mt Cook.

We also did a hike around Lake Matheson late in the day and afterward Diane and I gave up on getting a flight. The weather out here is just too unpredictable and wasn't working in our favor that day. We went on to Fraz Joseph Glacier to get going on dinner and we checked into a pretty cool holiday park and met up with the guys the next morning since they'd rather free camp on the street.

With a clear sky showing in the morning, we called up the skydive guys and were told to be there by 11am to get a jump in before the weather changed. Well, we got our jump and I'll say, it was a hell of a rush. The tiny plane took off with Dine and I sat on the floor strapped to our two instructors. There wasn't any room to move around, or stand of course, but the windows were low and we took in a great view of the Fox Glacier and cloud obscured mountains beyond it. On a clear day we could have seen Mt Cook, but as it was we did see the base of it at least. It really is a small island that we'd see all sides of their biggest mountain range.

At 9000 feet we hit some low clouds, but they weren't thick enough to stop the ascent (you can'y jump through clouds) so we went to 12000 and opened the door. Diane was closest to the door so she scooted over with her guy and they swung their legs off the side of the plane and dropped out of sight. On my turn we slid out the door and I caught a face full of wind as we sped towards the ground at 120 mph. It felt more like a rollercoaster than a bungee jump since I didn't have to do anything. The instructor pulled the cord eventually, we spiraled to the ground, and I took some pictures of Diane landing. I loved it, and I better have for $225. NZ is the land of extreme sports. I had to do one of them.

At Franz Joseph Glacier, we met up with the guys right where we left them that morning. This glacier was pretty much the same as the last one, but the view was a little better from the wide moraine field left from when it was a lot bigger 80 years ago. Some nice waterfalls sprinkled the area too. The weather was turing on us again so we went north up the coast until it got late and we settled into a DOC camp site deep in the woods. Shortly after we pulled in and started cooking the rain came and poured hard. The grass instantly turned into a swamp and we ran into a roofed shelter and braved the mosquitoes for a game of cards before calling it a night.

The rain continued on unabated in the morning so we packed up the stuff we left unwashed in the rain shelter the night before and got into our vans. I think we just ate an apple and some buttered bread in the front seats. I told the guys to follow us on to Greymouth further north so that we could hopefully find some better weather and maybe take the brewery tour there. It poured rain for the hour long drive and only stopped when we got there though it stayed nice and grey, which was expected since we were in Greymouth of Grey County. Diane took a shower at a carpark, the guys used the wifi at McDonalds, and I got some tips from the iSite. They told me where to find a free natural hotspring in the Lewis Pass up in the mountains. The guys are really cheap so that's the sort of thing they'd be into.

Turning inland towards the pass, we drive through several small sheep towns until we reached Reefton, where the sun shone for the first time in days. It's known for its gold mining history. Back in the day, it was a very wealthy place and was the first recipient of a municipal electrical system in 1870 when they built a small dam generator to power 200 bulbs. First we went to see the Bearded Miner Company on the main street. The guys there collect small donations to keep the town looking good, and share their knowledge of mining, panning, and fossiking (looking for gold) with anyone who will listen. The guys there showed us propper panning tequnique and a mess of rock samples.

It was explained to me that the downstream towns were short lived gold panning camps in the late 19th century, but here in Reefton the gold is still stuck in the placer rock. That means that large scale gold mines are needed to collect the gold and they have operated here until the last local one closed down in the 70s. Other gold mines continue on in NZ. The steady work in the mines led to a prosperous "married mans" community that lasted the years. After chatting long enough, we rented a shovel and some pans and drove 10k downstream to a recreational panning site on a small river.

I actually remembered a lot of the technique from the several times that I did it as a kid in California but it was good to get a refresh from those bearded old timers. I dug some 'pay dirt' out of the washed out side of the river bank and dished it out to our panners. It ended up that I was the only person to find a flake of gold but I didn't have anywhere to put something so tiny so I just ate it. It'd probably be more profitable if I just panned a bottle of Goldschlager next time.

It was a brief bit of sun and warmth that we got in Reefton but that all changed back once we left and made for Lewis Pass to head towards Hanmer Springs and Christchurch. We drove through a couple hours of scattered showers and high winds until we found the supposed location of Sylvia Springs on our map but much driving didn't turn up any signs for it so we gave up and camped down a gravel road off of the highway. It was one of those gravel depots that the highway service uses for storms and had a good spot far enough from the river and with enough wind to discourage sandflys.

They weren't discouraged anymore by morning and bit the hell out of us and clustered inside the vans when we cooked a quick breakfast. Rain started flicking us as we cooked and the moment we finished packing it let loose all hell and didn't stop for the entire day. We were determined to reach the thermal waters of Hanmer Springs even though you had to pay for them. Partly it was from the frustration from our search for Sylvia Springs, and partly because the men of the group hadn't bathed in a couple days in anticipation. Yea, we were getting a bit funky but Diane refused to join us and took a shower back at Greymouth the previous day.

Hanmer Springs was a lovely little resort town. We enjoyed the natural hot water at the resort for $15 each and afterwards huddled inside a cafe for more fish and chips since it was raining to hard to cook for ourselves in peace. We split up with the guys too because they had a different schedule than us and we wanted to go tour a place the next day that they'd already been to. We figured that we may as well do some driving as long as the weather was against us. And so we did, and we stayed in a holiday park outside of Christchurch. I was afraid for my camera and didn't take any pictures of the day at all.

Ok, this next day was certainly photogenic. Just south of Christchurch is the Otago Peninsula jutting out of the East coast into the sea. It's an ancient volcano that's very eroded and now forms a sort of ring of coastal valleys surrounding one main bay that carved into the inner cone. In that main bay is the postcard perfect town of Akaroa. The main highlight of the island though has got to be the Summit Road that goes along the lip of the former volcanic peaks and lets you view all sides of the peninsula from staggering cliff side vantage points. I'll never forget it, one of the best scenic drives in the world.

The town of Akaroa itslef is terribly cute though I failed to capture it well in pictures. It was founded by a group of French colonists who arrived just a year too late to claim the South Island for France. Though there's nothing really French about the town besides its road names and prices, it's still one of the cutest on record here in NZ. Diane and I took it all in as we strolled around the harbor and main street sucking on local ice cream of gigantic proportions. We also visited a small cheese factory and tried more samples than we should be allowed to and bought some good stuff to go with our wine and crackers before retiring to Okains Bay to cam out for the night near the beach. One of the cheese makers lives out there and we found that there could not have been more than a dozen homes in that secluded place. We should have knocked on enough doors to find a dinner invitation. The camp was nice though and we chatted with an older couple from Mass over dinner. Of course we took a dip in the sea before the sun went down.

Some light rain spoiled the morning picnic that we'd been planning so we simply made our way back towards Christchurch to find a nicer day indoors. Of course by the time we got there and did some strolling about the weather cleared right up though it was a little cold. My initial impression of Christchurch was that it felt much older and more culturally rich than Wellington or Auckland. The city was founded in the mid 19th century and supposedly was conceived with the vision of having more churches than pubs. I don't know that it does now, but it certainly does have a ton of stately old stone churches. Besides those there are numerous Gothic inspired stone manors now used for private schools, arts centers, and of course upscale pubs.

The most charming thing about the town has got to the the narrow and slow river that lazily snakes its way through the 'City Centre'. It's shaded by weeping willows (planted from clippings from Napoleon's Grave) and many other trees and trafficked by gondola boats pushed along by a dressy man with a pole in hand. the straw hats, striped jackets, and suspenders make it an instant classic. We just didn't have the $50 for them though, so instead we visited the nearby botanical gardens that afternoon to smell the roses.

Besides the boat around town, there's also a stylish wooden tram system that circles around the best looking parts of town and is really just for tourists. It look particularly nice as it crosses through Cathedral Square past the biggest church in town surrounded by clusters of huge sycamore trees. I love the look of this town, though parking isn't cheap. That night I figure out that the parks have free parking and I planned to use it the next day, our last day in New Zealand. That night we camped in another holiday park near to the town center.

Ok, here's my last day in New Zealand. I've been looking forward to the end of this post, and I feel like I'm almost there. We started out with a trip to the city museum, free for once, and I particularly liked the displays of the lives of the Moa hunters. If I haven't mentioned them before, there used to be a huge bird similar to ostrich but bigger called the Moa. It's thought that they weren't too afraid/hostile to humans and they were hunted to extinction within a couple hundred years. They had other displays about NZ history too but I don't feel like writing about it.

The rest of the day was spent wandering town, returning the van, and enjoying our new hostel called the Jailhouse. It's built in an old cell block that was closed down in the 70s and now hosts a very comfortable and well accommodated hostel. It's a 25 minute walk from downtown but the facilities are awesome. In the evening we walked all over town to find a good local restaurant selling steak but ended up settling on a classy pub that we visited the day before. I got a kilo of huge green muscles and fries and Diane got the Belgian beef stew. They both came with Belgian fries and garlic mayo which I really like to dip in now. Ah, that was a hell of a meal.

Before long, we were back at the hostel and Diane got picked up at 4am to go to the airport while I got picked up at 9. You know, I had a really great time in NZ. It was great to be in an English speaking country once again and to be able to talk to some locals. They were certainly friendly. I liked driving there even though they claimed themselves to be crazy drivers. I thought they were fine. Oh, and I really love the currency there. They've got 1 and 2 dollar coins as well as 10c, 20c, and 50c coins. All totals are rounded to the nearest 10c. That's about the smartest thing I've ever heard of. The real weakness of the country lies in its insanely high alcohol taxes, expensive parking ($4 an hour at meters), and lack free wifi. It's slow too when you do pay for it. I think that I must have spent about $100+ a day there, which is pretty crazy I'll admit. Maybe I earned it after so many months of living cheap. Still, I'm going to miss Diane.

The plane ride to Argentina was pretty miserable, but I guess I'll discuss that gem in the next post which hopefully will not be so delayed since I've got more time on my hands out here. Thanks for the patience!