Santiago - Chili

9/5/05
Time Traveling
Who said it is impossible? We left Auckland at 7:00 a.m., and with the huge time difference, arrived in Santiago at 2:30 a.m. of the same day, yes, much earlier than we left!
Unfortunately the saga of Lan Chile wasn't finished with a flight 2 days late. One of our bags stayed in Auckland! After all the waiting and paperwork for the bag, it was almost 5 a.m.; so we decided to wait until 6:00 a.m. in the airport to save a night of hotel and get to the city in day light.

We were lucky to be brought to a very friendly hostel, we checked in and slept until noon. After a long nap we went for our first round in Santiago de Chile; the first stop was San Cristobal mount, crowned by a white statue of virgin Mary, from where there is a nice view of the city with the snow-capped Andes as a back drop curtain.



As we were still tired we ended the day with an excellent dinner and delicious Chilean red wine in a fine restaurant.

9/6/05
On this day we wandered around the center of the Chilean capital. It is really crowded.



There are lots of old well-kept buildings from the colonial time with different kinds of architectures. The old and the new sit side by side.



We relaxed for most of the afternoon at Plaza de Armas. It is considered the heart of the city, surrounded by the Cathedral, the Audiencia Real (Royal Court), the Central Post Office -formerly the conqueror's house- and Santiago's City Hall. After so much running in Australia and New Zealand all we did was to watch the senior citizens or mere passers-by feeding the pigeons or just hanging out under the fresh shade of leafy trees.

Other tourists are looking for the best angle for the next picture while the kids, shining shoes, are looking at everyone's feet in search of a potential client and the ambulant sellers carry their packs around. There are also many artists exposing paintings on the sidewalk; someone gathers hundreds in a circle to tell them about a miraculous 'natural' medicine that is capable of curing almost anything that can possibly bother you and so on, the square is the real reality show.

We resumed our walk by heading to San Diego, a street where you can find cheap used books. The Mercado Central is another landmark where you can buy good food. On our way back to the hostel, we passed by Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the city center with gardens, fountains and the remains of the fortress that was site of the original Spanish settlement. Here again you can have a good view of the city.





For the night we bought wine and steaks and stayed at our friendly cozy hostel. Talking to one of the guys from the hostel we got all the information to visit Valparaiso the next day.

9/7/05
Valparaiso
We left in the morning, took a subway to the bus station and then a bus to Valparaiso, some one hour and a half from Santiago. The trains of the subway in Santiago are French, like the ones in Paris, even the subway stations are alike; the trains have tires instead of iron wheel, so it runs smoothly and silently.

We left Santiago by bus, crossed poorer neighborhoods, hit the road and very quickly got to Valparaiso, the main portuary city in Chile and the closest to Santiago.

Valparaiso is very characteristic with still some old colonial buildings ...



... and hundreds of colorful houses on the hills facing the ocean.





There are also dozens of old ascensores (cable car), to facilitate the life of the locals living up hill.



We walked uphill, crossed a street-open museum, saw a lot of the local life around and reached the house of the most famous Chilean writer, Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). His house, now a museum, is today referenced as La Sebastiana and stands on Bellavista hill where from you can see the city and the see. We rested in the garden but did not visit the museum with its exhibition.





Around 3 p.m. we were heading back to Santiago where we wandered more around in its nice streets.

During dinner at the hostel we met an Argentinean studying architecture for social housing doing a research in Chile.

9/8/05
This was the day the damn Lan Chile promised to finally bring our bag, four days after we had arrived. We basically wasted the whole morning waiting for them to show up, which they did only around noon; at least they gave us 60 US dollars in compensation.

In the afternoon we went to a book store to buy a Portuguese/Spanish book to speed up our Spanish.
Then we sat in one of the busy streets for an ice-cream and laughed with the performance of The Mimic making fun of every one passing by.

9/9/05
Our last day in Santiago ended up being one of the most wasted days of the trip so far, due to lack of luck.
We went to Valle Nevado, a famous ski resort near the city. The guys at the hostel, again, provided all the information on where to rent the gear and how to get to the resort. It was very easy, we took the subway at 7:15 a.m. and got of at the last stop, then walking two blocks we arrived at the place where we rented gear and bought transport to go and come back from Valle Nevado; around two hours later we arrived at the resort, but there was a huge snow storm.

We mainly wanted to check the resort to see if it would be worth to come from Brazil on vacation, but visibility wasn't greater then three meters in any direction, we didn't ski and we didn't see anything, so we still don't know how Valle Nevado is.

It was two days after the independence holiday in Brazil, so the place was taken up by Brazilians, I was quite surprised because Chile has the best economy in South America, therefore it is the most expensive too; it might be cheaper then North America and Europe but is not exactly affordable for an average Brazilian income. The cheapest room was around a 100 US dollars.

In short, we did nothing the whole day.

Auckland - New Zealand

9/2/05
Here we go; this is our last post about New Zealand. Just in case you're getting tired of it, be aware that the next will be Chile!

We drove from Northland to a little town just next to Auckland on the night before; the drive from the little town to Auckland was around one hour only. This was the only place in NZ where we saw roads with several lanes and traffic jams.

Auckland is the largest urban region in the country and home to almost 1.3 million people.



Its fiery volcanic past is evident; volcanoes are scattered throughout the region. Note the two green mounts in the picture, they are now extinct volcanoes.



The most well-known includes Rangitoto Island in the Waitemata Harbor, and some which give the best panoramic views like Mount Eden.



Auckland has 31% of New Zealand's population and it has one new settler every 29 minutes. Also it claims to be the 2nd largest geographically spread city in the world, so with only 1.3 million, you figure that it is really spread.

At night, we met a friend of Angie from her hometown, Dettwiller, in Alsace. Now he lives in NZ and last time they saw each other was 11 years ago in their village. We spent a nice time, having wine and later moved to a bar for some beers. Here is Olivier!



9/3/05
This was supposed to be our last day in NZ, but ...

We had the morning free before heading to the airport to take our flight to Santiago in Chile, so we went to visit the War Memorial Museum. There we watched an interesting Maori Show before exploring the rest of the museum.

It is really funny when they do their ... well, I don't know how to say it in English, so, someone out there that knows Portuguese please find proper translation and post it in the comments; it is really funny when they do their Grito de Guerra, punching their own chest, making faces, pulling their tongue out and shouting. If you want to see it, you can watch the movie Whale Rider. It is a good movie about the Maori culture nowadays in New Zealand, even though the story is a bit slow; anyway, don't miss their war exercises, it is funny.



After, war shouts, music and dance we went for the rest of the museum. The first floor is all about Maori, their costumes, music, believes and the arrival of the English on the island.

There are temples brought into the museum with walls all carved and decorated.





Even their boats, huge canoes made of whole Kauri trees, were well worked; this is the tip front of a war canoe that can carry up to 160 warriors.



There was really a lot of interesting things about the Pacific islands and their cultures.
Then it follows into sections of War World War I and II and also NZ civil war. There is a room with a legendary Spitfire airplane from WWII.

After the museum we walked in the Domain, through its nice gardens, heading back to our hotel to get our stuff and then went to the airport.

At the airport we had a nice surprise, after all the nine yards of waiting, checking in, more waiting and then finally boarding, the pilot gave us the wonderful news that we would have to get off the plane because one of the trucks bumped into the plane making a hole in the fuselage.

At that point we just thought that our flight would be really late, because another airplane would be needed and all the passengers had to leave and board again, plus all the bags, or in one word: hell.

We got off the plane and received vouchers to buy food, not bad. After nearly one hour of wait, we were informed that the flight had been cancelled and we would be transferred to a hotel and later would receive more info about when we would fly.

The problem was that it was the night of the final match of the rugby championship between New Zealand's All Blacks and another Australian team; all the hotels in town were full, so we were bought to a Motel at least one hour and a half away from Auckland.

At least there was a good restaurant next to it, called Two Fat Cows. We were told that all expenses would be covered by Lan Chile except alcoholic drinks, uhuuu!!!

It was a nice break from instant noodles, sandwiches and other cheap foods we were eating. We ordered nice appetizers, the most expensive steaks and why not? desserts; the owner of the restaurant had a giant radiant smile on his face with a group of around 20 people all ordering food like crazy, all at the expense of Lan Chile.

During our long dinner, we met a group of kiwi farmers from NZ going to South America and Europe to research about new kiwi markets and a weird South Korean in a world tour. During dinner we were informed that we would receive more details about our flight on the following morning.

9/4/05
We went back to Two Fat Cows for breakfast at 8 a.m. and since the place is a restaurant and bar they had no breakfast on the menu, so I had a steak sandwich while Angie ordered a French Toast. During breakfast came the info about our flight, it was scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. of the yet next day, I couldn't believe it.

The whole group was unhappy about the situation and we said that we had at least to be transferred to a real hotel, so they did. After breakfast a big bus came and took us to nothing less then the Sky Tower, the hotel in the main landmark of Auckland and one of the most expensive in town, wow.



We got a super room and were informed that the restaurant of the hotel was free of charge for us, an immense buffet with all you can imagine, tons of different salads, pasta, meats, chicken and fish, :)

After an astronomic lunch, we walked around Auckland with the South Korean guy. We invited him to come with us to visit the Art Gallery. Talking to him we discovered that he had spent the last whole year in New Zealand studying the Bible. New Zealand is not a cheap place but he was at his own expense.

After the Art Gallery we wandered in the park in the middle of town and then went back to the hotel.

The dinner was a buffet again in the restaurant of the hotel where we met an interesting Spanish/Argentinean couple that told us a bit about what to expect in Chile, Bolivia and Peru.

Northland - New Zealand

8/30/05
Our journey continued going to Matakohe, where we visited the Kauri Museum. (www.kauri-museum.com).

The landscape here is very different from the 'Lord of the Rings-like' mountains from the south.



What we crossed most of the time was hilly landscape ...



... taken up by thousands of farms.



Back to the Kauri; what is it?

We spent the afternoon in the museum learning all about the forest we would visit the next day.

The Waipoua Forest contains three quarters of the remaining kauri trees in New Zealand. The largest kauri, and tallest tree in New Zealand, is Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest), 51m high, with a girth of over 13m.
The Kauri tree, Agathis australis, is New Zealand's largest and most famous native tree; it ranks among the most ancient in the world, pairing with the Red Woods and Sequoias in California.

The oldest tree, Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest) in Waipoua Forest, is estimated to be 2000 years old.

There are logs being recovered from the ground which were buried by natural cataclysmic events long ago. Carbon dating has indicating that logs were buried up to 50,000 years ago and it is surprisingly still good quality solid wood.

There is also a lot about kauri gum in the museum. It is a resin which bleeds from the tree and since the forest is so old, there is a vast amount of this gum buried in the ground long before our existence. The museum has kauri gum dated 43 million years old. They use it to make expensive jewelry and all kinds of artcraft.

At the end of the day we drove to Baylys Beach, a hundred-kilometer of unbroken coastline. There we stayed until the sun was gone, we watched the sun slowly dive in the sea making the water look like it was boiling.



8/31/05
After so much learning about kauries we went to see them. This is Yakas, mesuring 12.29m of girth and 43.9m of height, it is really giant.





There are many other impressive trees in the Waipoua Forest, these are actually four trees that grew up almost as one. It is now called The Four Sisters.



After we had enough of giant trees, we headed more north to the coastline, crossed with a ferry a river in a little village, ...



... kept going through the grassy hills and finished in Wapapakauri Beach, the start of the Ninety Mile Beach.

This is an absolute uncrowded straight line of beach that streches beyond your sight. We got there a minute after the sun was gone, all we saw was the pink sky.



9/1/05

We spend the day exploring the Ninety Mile Beach.



The place we prefered was Henderson Bay where the sand has a pinkish color due to the fine silica in it.



The whole area is preserved, so there are lots of marine life left. There are hundreds of jelly fish laying on the beach.




We followed a little walking path at the edge of the dunes from where you could see the whole bay.

Coromandel - New Zealand

8/28/05
We spent the day slowly traveling up north in the direction of the Hot Water beach in Coromandel. We stopped in different towns and other beaches. That region seems to be the heart of kiwi plantations. They were selling them all along the road for cheap prices. Later we bought wine and food and found a nice spot just by the beach to watch the sunset.

Since we didn't take pictures that day I'll give you a link to a website of another retarded New Zealand attraction.

www.zorb.com

8/29/05
The first thing we did in the morning was to check the hot spot. There is no better place for a hot spring; you can dig a swimming pool on the sand at low tide and hot water comes out the ground. You can then seat back and relax in steaming hot water.



The hot water is not the only attraction, all around is beautiful and well preserved.







Next to it there is the Hahei beach with a nice walk that takes you to the Cathedral Cove. The area is a protected marine park and the way is easy; along the trail there were lots of reeds.



The shore has lots of little bays and beautiful rocky formations.



The Cathedral Cove.





After the walk we stopped in a winery on the way to Cooks beach; they had liquors of Feijoa, Kiwi and Passion Fruit. These liquors, when served with sparkling water, are the perfect refreshment for a sunny day. They also produce wine out of kiwi, but we don't know how that goes, because it was sold out. Here is the winery house.



By then it was time for some food and we pick nick at Cooks beach.

After that we followed to the Otama Forest in Kuaotunu. Hundred years ago timber millers and gold miners burned the bush and dug into the hills. Now the residents of Kuaotunu discovered and re-opened an old gold mine road to create a gentle and very beautiful walk through a valley of re-generating native bush.

Out of the walk, we kept heading north and at one of the viewpoints where we stopped on the road we had a visit of a Possum.

Possums are considered a plague in the country; they were brought from Australia long ago and because it doesn't have a natural predator they multiplied as hell and are literally eating New Zealand's forests. There are so many possums in New Zealand that is impossible to travel 100 kilometers without seeing one smashed on the road. They are really not afraid of people, you can get as close as you want and I think that even petting would be fine, they just ignore your presence and keep eating. The lack of fear must be the reason why they are smashed on the roads so often.





The last one for the day was an awesome sunset that we watched from the top of a mount.

Rotorura - New Zealand

8/27/05
In the morning we had cafe in the town of Taupo Lake. The lake was formed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption 1800 years ago.
After breakfast we went to the Craters of the Moon walk located in a dynamic thermal area formed when drilling began nearby the Wairakei Geothermal field in the 1950s.



The walk features sizzling and bubbling craters, mud pools and steam vents. A walk board is provided for the visit and it is better to stick to it, because the most recent eruption happened in 2002 and it was the biggest in the last 10 years.



Then we went through the Geothermic Powerplant that generates 5% of New Zealand's electricity. There are hundreds and hundreds of pipes leaving the ground and driving steam to the powerplant.



The next stop was at the Thermal Wonderland. The area is associated with volcanic activity dating back about 160,000 years and is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone.

In basic terms, beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300C have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which they are ultimately absorbed into the ground.



To visit the area costs 23 NZ dollars per person, but before crossing the gate there is a mud pool that can be visited for free. The bubbling here is not the result of high temperature though, but gases emerging from the ground.





Inside the park there are lots of different formations to see.

Devil' Home - rough sides and yellow/greenish colors where cooling volcanic vapors have colored the walls.



Devil's Ink Pots - A series of mud pools whose water levels fluctuate with the amount of rainfall. The color is due to small amounts of graphite and crude oil brought to the surface by the water forcing its way up.





Artist's Palette - Overflowing water from the Champagne Pool draws with it minerals that have originated from below the surface. As the waters cool and the minerals are exposed to our atmosphere they show themselves in a variety of locations and colors depending upon water levels and wind direction.





The Primrose Terrace (like honeycomb)- These sinter terraces are the largest in New Zealand. The water from the Champagne Pool dissolved silica which, as the water evaporates, is deposited as siliceous sinter. They are regarded as being very fragile and have been forming at a variable rate over the last 700 years currently covering an area of about 1.5 hectares (3 acres)





The Champagne Pool - It is the largest in the district, being 65 meters in diameter and 62 meters deep. Its surface temperature is 74C (skin burns happen at 50C). The pool was formed 700 years ago by a hydrothermal eruption. Minerals contained in the water are gold, silver, mercury, sulfur, arsenic, thallium, antimony etc and are presently depositing in the surrounding sinter ledge.







Devil's Bath - The color is the result of excess water from the Champagne Pool mixing with sulfur and ferrous salts. Changes color through green to yellow are associated with the amount of reflected light and cloud cover.



After the Volcanic Zone visit, we passed by a small touristic Maori village.