Morning all. Really need a coffee and some breakfast. After a cursory torch-lit investigation of the hostel,we´ve been unable to locate kitchen looking things & settled on it being a bit early to venture out into the city again. Blog, I´m hoping you can distract for a little while!
We arrived here yesterday at lunchtime, having left Auckland yesterday afternoon & spending 11 hours in transit. Thus the limited grasp of time & sleep patterns. Not much to report on Santiago yet, other than it´s definitely a city, busy, & with a proliferation of cream cake shops. Other food options seem mainly to centre around big chunks of meat & cheese in baps, so I foresee a diet of cheese & cakes in the immediate future. Fairly happy with that! I´m worried about my lack of Spanish, but Tim´s getting stuck in. My survival may depend on that a bit..
The last couple of weeks in NZ were good, if a bit hectic & emotional in places. Tim & I got our 10 days on the road, with some awesome views of the North Island. Good to experience stinky sulphur expiring Rotorua, with it´s surreal steaming lakes. A National Park , Tongorua, provided some snow capped mountain views (one of which is an angle of Mordor). Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel - limestone(?) carved rocks & walk trhoughs on a white beach - is as beautiful as we´d heard. & some excellent Dept of Conservatin campsites, especially Uretiti(!!) & Oramure, south of the Bay of Islands on the coast were stunning. Some great beach walks & deserved sunny spells!
Tough leaving what has become our home in Auckland. Marco & Clara have looked after us very well, & we´re going to miss them, & our occasional surrogate baby girl Paula. Very much. A hurried last list of missions on Fri morning included throughing together a framed photo collection of our housemates, which I´m pleased I finally got around to doing! But just us again now, for a couple of months. I´m sure they´ll fly.
We arrived here yesterday at lunchtime, having left Auckland yesterday afternoon & spending 11 hours in transit. Thus the limited grasp of time & sleep patterns. Not much to report on Santiago yet, other than it´s definitely a city, busy, & with a proliferation of cream cake shops. Other food options seem mainly to centre around big chunks of meat & cheese in baps, so I foresee a diet of cheese & cakes in the immediate future. Fairly happy with that! I´m worried about my lack of Spanish, but Tim´s getting stuck in. My survival may depend on that a bit..
The last couple of weeks in NZ were good, if a bit hectic & emotional in places. Tim & I got our 10 days on the road, with some awesome views of the North Island. Good to experience stinky sulphur expiring Rotorua, with it´s surreal steaming lakes. A National Park , Tongorua, provided some snow capped mountain views (one of which is an angle of Mordor). Cathedral Cove in the Coromandel - limestone(?) carved rocks & walk trhoughs on a white beach - is as beautiful as we´d heard. & some excellent Dept of Conservatin campsites, especially Uretiti(!!) & Oramure, south of the Bay of Islands on the coast were stunning. Some great beach walks & deserved sunny spells!
Tough leaving what has become our home in Auckland. Marco & Clara have looked after us very well, & we´re going to miss them, & our occasional surrogate baby girl Paula. Very much. A hurried last list of missions on Fri morning included throughing together a framed photo collection of our housemates, which I´m pleased I finally got around to doing! But just us again now, for a couple of months. I´m sure they´ll fly.
