Iguazu falls

Golly wizz i am tired. Here in Iguazu at the minute, on the Brazilian and Argentinian borders. There are some crazy falls here and we popped into the brazilian side to have a gawk at them today, pretty sweet but what really interested me was all the cool animal life we saw. The falls themselves are right in the middle of the rainforest even though they are just 30 minutes outside the city. Just walking along the path we saw so many different types of bug it would make any primary school boy estatic, tons of different type ants, a tiny albino spider and moth, i put my hand on a railing for a minute and when i looked again there was a 2 inch praying mantis/stick insect on it, lots of creepy crawlers and above our heads in some places 4 foot webs with 3 inch spiders sitting in them. Well class, no mosquitos either which meant you got all the good stuff with none of the bad.

We are going again tomorrow and doing the argentinian side which is much larger and will involve several hours of walking, should be a good laugh. Came home on my own tonight cuz the girls are staying in a restaurant having a few drinks, feeling a bit New Zealand home-sick.

Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires

bha, i forgot how much effort writing this thing can be, especially when it is so very hot. I am here in Buenos Aires at the moment after stopping off in Mendoza and Cordoba along the way. We have realised that we seem to only bestopping in the big cities so we are going to try and take it a bit slowly and stop in a few small towns and National Parks between here and Brazil. Like i said it has been incredibly hot recently with the average around 30degrees. It is really humid and one day in Cordoba it actually got to 35degrees. That was not too bad though as we just sat around the hostel all day and then started drinking that evening and got to see a 10 hour lightning storm before it finally broke and started pouring rain around 4 in the morning, good times.

Buenos Aires is really nice so far, we have learned to only go to hostels that have air-conditioning. Its a really sweet city and feels very safe. We have learnt our lesson in that regard though, i no longer carry around my backpack so my sum possessions around town are my suncream, a map and around 20-25 euros worth of money. Not carrying anything worth stealing actually means you worry so much less, which is good. Like i said Buenos Aires is pretty sweet, you could spend ages here and the girls actually are spending all day today in town shopping as the sales are on. Its ridiculous really, there is a Christian Dior shop with fancy waistcoats going for 40 euros or leather jackets going for 30. Yesterday we went for a 3 course steak meal that came to a grand total of 12 euros. Of course then you have things that are imported that cost the exact same as home and sometimes are even more expensive, books and electronics being a case in point. I can actually see our stay here expanding past the alloted 4 days. Think i wil buy present for a lot of ye cretins here and then ship them home tobe opened when i get back.

I have been having really weird dreams lately, just plain old dreams of home that are actually very depressing. In one i was after arriving home and met a few of ye except that ye had gotten fat and old and could only talk for a few minutes before having to get back to yer desks, then was walking around town to meet the parents and go home and i was so cold and depressed cuz i was never going to see my New Zealand friends again. There was another one last night when i was walking down William Street with Liam and we were pretty much just arguing about money and loans and shit, again i was just home and really cold. I suppose its just a kind of immaturity on my part about not wanting to actually face the real world once i get back. One thing i am noticing about travelling around with Kelly and Cathy is that I am forgetting New Zealand more and more. Its an odd thing really, they will be talking about some musician or event that happened in Limerick and i was wondering why i had never heard of it, before realising that i have not been in the country for nearly 10 months. pity that

In other news Cathy has her flickr account up and running, its www.flickr.com/cathyduffy It has similiar but different pictures than Kelly.

I Aint Dead....although i wished i was

Alright, so i am here in SA (thats South America, get with the lingo, gringo, hahahah) for one week so perhaps i whould let ye in on my Latin adventure.

The story begins back in New Zealand. Paul has gotten a loan and it is in his current account. Since he has not used his irish current account in around 6 months he has forgotten his PIN number and has cleverly requested that Bank of Ireland send his PIN home where the parents will email to him straight away. In the mean time he transfered enough funds to his credit card to get him through the week. And an expensive week it was, backpacks, malaria tablets, stuff for my medkit and miscellanious necessary stuff. But on Wednesday i said goodbye to Derek&Fiona`s apartment, mystal their dog and headed off to the airport. I had checked my bags in and went to pay the ridiculous `departure tax´that they foist you with. I was also going to get some $US to keep me going in CHile til my PIN arrives. SO i go to the money place

$100US and i`ll pay the departure tax please.
Credit Card Declined
Haha, just $50 dollars and the departure tax then.
Credit Card Declined
Hmmm, just the departure tax then
Credit Card Declined
................shit

Did not have a fucking clue what to do at this stage as i had absolutely no cash on me and was already cutting it tight with the plane. After standing around thinking of any alternatives in the end i had to call Fiona in the city and ask her to leave work and come in and pay for me, which sucked major bum for all involved, I paid the departure tax and ran up the stairs and got into the queue for security while i hear that my flight has stated boarding. I eventually get true, grab a packet of M&M´s from the shop and get to the plane just as they were going to call my name. Cue the most stresful flight of my life as i just sat or lay there for 10 hours wondering what on earth i was going to do when i landed in Chile not knowing anyone, not having any spanish, and not having any money to to get a place to stay or even to get transport to the city. By the time we were approaching the mainland i kind of knew what i had to do. There was an Irish couple sitting a few seats ahead of me and although it was the most mortifying moment of my life, i went up to them and told them my dilemma and asked could they help me out by paying for my hostel for a night. They very kindly agreed and i got a taxi into the city with them and stayed at a lovely hostel called EcoHostel. I sent a pretty frantic email to a few people asking where Cathy was as i needed her to arrive the next day or else the Irish couple would be leaving and i would not have gotten a chance to pay them back, or leech off them more. Luckily a few hours after a crashed into bed, a 14 hour time difference between NZ and SA and a ten hour flight with no sleep will help you do that, i was brutally awoken by Cathy jumping on my bed so that story ended pretty well. I got money opff her, paid back the irish couple and then my PIN number was sent over, huzzah.

So for those not in the know, Cathy is a friend of mine from Ireland who decided to come over and do the South American leg of the trip with me and her friend Kellie-Ann also came with her, so know there is three of us travelling. It is a bit weird travelling with other people and actualy having to take their opinions into account, you become a very selfish traveller when you are on your own, you can come and go whenever and wherever you please, it takes a bit of adjustment taking other people opinion into account and having to do things that you dont want to 100% do, because the group does. The plus point is, well one of them, is tht both Cathy and Kellie-Ann are professional photographers and now i dont have ot take a single photo for the rest of the trip, even if we do stop every 2 minutes to snap a tree or piece of graffetti. Kellie-ann has a site where she is putting all her photos www.flickr.com/kellieann and Cathy will be wsetting hers up soon. You dont have to join or anything so tis good for all yous who cant see my bebo ones.

We left Santiago after a few days and arrived in Mendoza, Argentina on Monday, will be here for a day or two yet i say. I am going to hve to get better at the old travel writing, have seen the blog of another couple that i met and its very good, not just boring listing `what they did today´so i will try that in future. Hasta Loega for now

An End of an Era

So tomorrow is going to be my last day of my New Zealand holiday, I am actually flying out on Wednesday but early enough and that will all be spent in the airport. Over the last few days I have found myself just sitting around staring into space and replaying the last 9 months over and over in my mind and what can I say? They were a blast.

I remember arriving in Queenstown, wondering around lost and jet-lagged for a week, heading to Dunedin and my first night in Central Backpackers and then all the class times I had there, my first road trip, making castles out of beer cans in the sitting room, playing WoW for hours in the internet cafe, heading back to Queenstown with my board and going snowboarding for the first time, changing hostels every week and meeting so many random people, doing a skydive, running out of money and having to work 60 hour weeks but then road trips on the weekend with group I was hanging with, hitch-hiking to Nelson, Doing the Abel Tasman walk and camping out for the first time, hanging around in Wellington bored before heading to Napier, all the great times in Napier working and playing, 15 of us sleeping under the stars on a beach, drinking and talking shit on the steps of The Warehouse, lazy afternoons in the courtyard and hard days talking shit for hours in the orchards, a crazy Christmas dinner for 38 under the hot sun, going back to Wellington for New Years, getting pissed most nights with 15 Germans, the shitty goodbyes when they all left for the South Island, then the road-trip up here to Auckland.

I can’t believe it has been nine months, feels like more than a year; Queenstown seems a life-time ago. I have met, befriended and said goodbye to so many people in that time as well. Some of them I can barely remember but there were so many that I would consider friends; Denise, Richard, Blair, Shane, Joelle, Angus, Nick, Rachel, Bev, Lucy, Andy, Stein, Lucille, Sylvania, Josh, Jo, Emmerson, Natalie, Marco, Jim, Jen, Mirna, Neil, Lucy, Ruth, Flo, Kirsty, Gerrit, Dave, Hila, Sue, Miyuki, Alex, Corey, Elle, Lina, Lisa. All people who I still feel sad about having to say goodbye to.

I suppose I should talk about what I have learnt from my time here in New Zealand and whatnot. Self-sufficiency is a big one, there were times when I got lonely and was stuck in a place were I felt I had no friends, sometimes for weeks at a time. Times like those you have to get used to your own company and to organising everything for yourself. On the other hand however, very often it was as a result of those bad times that I got to encounter the good times; feeling lost when I first arrived in Queenstown lead me to move and have a great time in Dunedin, my shit first visit to Wellington motivated me to move to Napier where I had the best few months of my holiday. The value of these friendships are also important, no matter how stunning a snow-capped mountain or pristine golden beach is, if you have no one to share it with then what’s the point? You learn to be philosophical about these things, good times come and good times go, as do good friends. You have to learn to juggle the skills of making acquaintances and developing friendships quickly with being able to let go and say goodbye, very often in the space of a few days. You also have to learn humility, I have stayed in stayed in some very shit hostels, been reduced to wearing cloths held together with safety pins, worked for some ignorant fuckers and in some really hard, thankless jobs.

If I were to do the trip all over again there are some things I would do differently but all in all I am happy with how it went, less time in Queenstown would be good, as would more in Dunedin, better budgeting would have helped but working was part of the experience. Surprisingly I am not actually that sad about leaving. After Wellington I said goodbye to my German friends, which was hard, but afterwards I kind of faced that fact that my money was running out and I was just not in the mood for more sight-seeing. For the last 3 weeks I have been here in Auckland staying in a friend’s apartment, which has been great. It was such a relief not to have to share a room or worry about someone stealing my food. Doing domestic things like walking the dog or just lazing around the house for the day was also great fun. We went on a few weekend and road trips but nothing major and that has been grand.

The time off has given me lots of time to catch up on my internet and organise this trip to South America. That is goingt to be fun, have organised an itenary of sorts and will hopefully meet up with some friend of mine in Argentina, Brazil and Peru, one of the plus points of having studied and travelled internationally i suppose. Dont know what the internet access will be like once i get over there and there is no Vodafone so dont think the old phone will work, will try and keep this thing going but leave me comments, even just your initials, just so I know if people are reading, saves me sending emails. Ciao for now