Nostalgic and Philosophical Ramblings

Just realised that 'Debate Pt II' down below was my 200th post and written almost 4 and a half years after my first one back in Department of Foreign Affairs. That's a long time by any standards though. I was tempted a few times to just give up on this, I think my record was almost 6 months with no updates at one stage. Glad I kept it though, reading back through it is always great fun, if bittersweet at times. I am no longer the fresh-faced 21 year old that started it, have travelled, lived and worked an awful lot since then. I was in a pissy mood about one thing or another a few days ago but then I just thought to myself, 'Fuck it Paul, you moved to the other side of the world, you relied solely on yourself for 9 months, you have criss-crossed the continent of South American twice, don't let something as trivial as this irritate you'. It actually worked and it got me thinking about the travelling again. Now I know most of you must be sick of me bringing it up but that Year away was possibly the most defining thing I have ever done in my life and I don't see anything coming close to it in the near future. I am just listening to a playlist made up of all the songs, mostly kiwi, that i associate with the trip away. None that famous, and some are actually quite crap but all remind me of certain times, people or places that I met or experienced.

A year is an awful long time to make memories and I have thousands that I find myself just sitting back and dwelling on, especially at times like this when i have an essay to write. Just wimple things like walking into the kitchen of the hostel after the gym with my rolls, protein shake and scrambled eggs. I can vividly remember the smell of the kitchen, the taste of the food, the fatigue from the gym, the comfort of knowing I had nothing really to do for the day. It might seem strange, considering how banal the memory is but that's actually one I come back to an awful lot, I was incredibly happy and content at that time, everything was going well and I did not have a care in the world. Looking back through it I also re-read a lot from the time I went to Maine on my own that summer. Even though there was several pretty extra-ordinary, exciting things that happened during that Summer there are others that stick out the most, drifting around on a lie-lo with lacy in the middle of an abandoned quarry lake, eating Ben & Jerries with Suzanne out in the barn watching Kung-fu movies.

So I suppose its just going to keep happening more and more as we get older (and we are getting older, something last weekend showed me) ie, the constant accumulation of memories; good times, bad times, opportunities missed, opportunities seized, friends made, lost, rediscovered. So for that reason I am going to be keeping this blog, and I think that others should restart theirs. What seems trivial today is could be a treasured memory tomorrow.

Its odd how the memory works. I was in town with Dave the other day at and we were looking for a space in the car-park. Now perhaps it is just 1st world car parks, but the smell of the place immediately brought me back to New Zealand, Dunedin to be precise. The gym I used to go to there was through a car-park and up a flight of stairs. Now as myself and Dave were driving around looking for a place I suddenly began considering what I would do in the gym and what I would eat afterwards. As if that was not strange enough today I went to a barbecue that was held in grassy area and as it turned out I was bitten on the ankle by some bug and it swelled up. What was odd was that the incredibly uncomfortable and itchy sensation in my leg did not really annoy me that much but instead kept me thinking of my time in South America, when I always had a few bites somewhere, and usually on my hands or ankles. It was driving me crazy but every time I started scratching it I had a wave of nostalgia.

Site for the Day: Flight Patterns around the Globe

Winter is a comin

Bah, so our great plan to come here to Santa Cruz and lay out by the pool sunning ourselves has been foiled slightly. The first few days were great but for the last 3 it has gotten cloudy and cold. Dont really know how I will manage back home as the 'cold' over here is 20*C and I am freezing. Its looking up now though and will probably get good this afternoon or tomorrow. Thank God though, we were going crazy with boredom to be honest. I know people say we should be enjoying our last few days but neither of us can wait to get home at this stage. Bumming around, floundering with the language, I am getting tired of it. Less than a week now.

Are actions right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?

It is done, it is completed. Arrived in Santa Cruz yesterday and I am now finished with long, multi-day bus trips, nights spent trying to get comfortable and putting up with loud people and screaming children. Am here in Santa Cruz and not moving until i fly to Rio, which is something I will organise today, then its to the pool to chillax.

Plans and Machinations

So we have decided what we are going to do with ourselves for the last leg of our trip. Our original plan was to fly from Lima, Peru to Salvador, Brazil and beach-hop our way down the coast to Rio and then fly home. Turns out we will have to pay nearly 500euro for plane tickets and then we will still have to spend 2 weeks in beautiful but expensive Brazil. Our second plan was to go to the coast of Peru and laze on the beaches there. Thing about that plan is that the beaches in south Peru are not supposed to be great and would involve a 2 day travel to them and then back to the airport at the end. So we came onto a great plan this afternoon, well I actually thought of it last night but I did not think Cathy would like it until she suggested it herself today. What we are going to do instead is head back east to Bolivia, to Santa Cruz to be precise. We stayed there before in a really nice hostel with a pool and everything. Its around a constant sunny 30* there and we can just relax and do nothing for 10 days in a cheap, cheap country before flying out of Santa Cruz airport to Rio and then spending 3 day there before coming home. Sweet as bro.

Competition:Give me a good title for this post

Spent the last few days in the Amazon Basin in the North of Bolivia. It was well class, easily one of the highlights of the whole South American trip. We flew out Tuesday morning in our own little 15-man jet over, and sometimes actually alongside, a big mountain range and eventually landed on a grass airfield in the middle of the jungle. We went from 3800m and 5*C to 300m and 32* in one hour. It felt good to get back into the heat though, the coolness of La Paz was getting to me.

So we spent one night in Rurranabaque, which is a small town where the tours are based out of. Forgot what it was like to have to try and sleep in 25*C heat, i.e difficult. The next day 8 of us piled into a Range Rover and headed off for a 3 hour ride along a dirt track to the River Beni, passing traditional huts made of mud and roofs of reeds along the way. Then it was a 1 hour boat ride through wetlands to our Lodge on the river. We stayed there for 3 days and two nights. We were lucky in one way in that it was rainy season, or at least the end of it and while it did not rain while we were there the river was flowing fast enough so mosquitoes were not that much of a problem, i got around 6 bites in three days which is better than Rio. We were unlucky in other ways in that the river was around several metres higher than usual and so there were not as many creatures to be seen, during the dry season they are much less shy and more eager to get to the waters edge where you can see them.

Saying that though we still saw tons. On the first day we just went for a boat ride up the river and saw lots of monkeys, yellow, howler, weird ones. Lots and lots of freaky birds, river snake and alligators. That night we also went to see the sun set over the pampa's fields which was pretty cool. The next day we went anaconda hunting but since the water was so high, nearly crotch high, they could be passing within a few feet of us and we would not have known, when its dry you can find them actually slithering through the mud. We did see lots of funky insects and stuff, ant nests in bushes where the ants ran from plant to plant along the algae on the water surface, bees the size of you thumb, wasps as big as you little finger-at one stage we heard this huge drone as a swarm of something flew over the fields near us, sounded like a racecar in the distance. After that we found a pod of fresh-water dolphins that lived in the river. they were around 5/6 foot long, pink and blind. They would come up to you and nibble at your feet or arms to see what you were and after a while they would come over to us in the water and you could try and swim along with them. That was well class, so much so that we went back later to a different spot and swam with a different pod. After that then we went piranha fishing which was a bit scary. Had a bit of meat on the end of hooks and when you dropped it into the water it would be gone in a flash, any of us would have been screwed if we had fallen in, not killed but definately mauled in just a few seconds. Cathy the jammy dodger caught one, pictures are in the process of being put up on her site.

The last day was we just went on another tour just to see what we could find and also to go swimming with more dolphins that we found. Was a bit worried about the alligators and stuff that were around but then we found half an anaconda in the rushes. Apparently the dolphins are very territorial and will attack anything that comes into their turf. Good thing i did not know that or i would not have gotten into the water. Several times when i was in the water i was thinking 'what the hell am i doing here?', not only because the entire situation was so surreal but also because i am petrified of sharks and here i was in 20ft murky water waiting for a large carnivorous animal to come out of nowhere and gnaw at my feet. The whole experience was class though. Cathy is putting up pictures but its very slow going and they wont be proper ready i.e rotated, cropped and sorted for a few days, she does hate it when people see her unfinished photo sets.

In other news, kelly, the girl who was travelling with us until Bolivia, has come down with Dengue Fever. Its a nasty viral infection that is sweeping through Rio and Brazil at the minute. Spread by mosquitos its goten so out of hand that the military have been called into Rio to enforce and aid in containment measures, draining stagnant water places and stuff. There is no vaccine against it, you just have to avoid getting bitten. Its not life-threatening, at least if caught early, just like a really really bad flu and you white blood cell count is fucked. She got it in time however and is alright, although having to go to a hospital in a different country is never fun. SHe is grand now though, have yet to find out what her plans for the rest of her trip are though.

So give us a few days and there wil be class photos up on flickr. Heading to Peru tomorrow, going to spend some time on Lake Titicaca and then off to Cuzco and to organise the Inca trail, then back to Brazil for a final 2 weeks of Capoeira and beaches.

Bolivia is odd, very odd

So thought I would write a short one since I will be out of commission for the next few days I think. Left Santa Cruz on Thursday and had a very uncomfortable 16 hour bus journey where we travelled 4000m up to La Paz in the freezing cold, not a good nights sleep. Arrived in La Paz and staggered down to our hostel. Again the place is far better than its reputation says, have had no problems in the 5 days we were here. What I did have a problem with however is the altitude, I have had a headache since last Saturday and it is only now beginning to fade, I was also panting like a paedophile every two minutes and felt like I had a weight on my chest, used to wake up feeling nauseous. Was not that productive to an enjoyable trip but I still had a good old time. Yesterday we had possibly the most surreal experience so far in South America when we went to a Bolivian Wrestling match. It was standard enough affair, fat guys in spandex throwing each other around, there was always a good guy and bad guy and the referree was always in cahoots with one of them. Then as the night went on it got a bit weirdo when the fights started getting a bit more extreme, guys getting thrown not only out of the ring and into the crowd, one of them getting a concussion and others being thrown onto crates that never broke meaning he just bust himself up. Then the Angry Cholita’s arrived. A cholita is a bolivian woman dressed in the traditional shawl and cap and skirt, you see them everywhere overhere.What was different about these was thay were psychotic and beat seven types of shit out of everyone, then the midgets arrived…..

Bolivia

Arrived here in Santa Cruz, Bolivia early Wednesday morning and am leaving today for La Paz, the capital. Have to admit I am very surprised by the place. I was expecting dirt roads everywhere, and begger kids following you around the place while everything is bought from stalls on the street. What i got instead was just a regular South American city with wheelchair ramps on the kerbs, fancy shopping area and plenty of people who speak English. I know that Santa Cruz is Bolivia's richest city but I was told that the whole country was a Third World one. I think its a case as well of us getting more used to the South American way of life as well. We went up to the bus station today to get our tickets and it was no hassle at all, we are finally getting the hang of asking for basic things in Spanish and learning simple things like the numbers and what not. We were also walking through a market area on the way home and even though we both had our credit cards and passports we felt quite safe. I think it may have been because when we first arrived in Chile, even though its one of the safest countries in South America, we were completely paranoid and scared to death by all the horror stories we heard when really all you have to do is show a bit of common sense.

Only a few weeks left now before home, down to the vinegar strokes of the trip as they say.

Paddies day in rio, huzzah!

So here´s a slightlt drunken St Patricks post. The holiday dynamic is changing today. Kelly, the other girl bar Cathy who came over, left us today to travel the coast of Brazil and Argentina rather than endure the hardship of Bolivia and Peru. Myslef and Cathy are heading to the airport tomorrow to fly to Bolivia for fun and frolics, then onto Peru then going back to Brazil to meet up with Kelly again for a weeks to chillax on the beacehes for which its famous for. that should be a laugh.

As for St. Patricks Day, myself and the C-dog spent several hours drinking on Ipenema beachand now are back in the hostel watching Return of the King, that bit was not planned but its on so it must be watched. later we are going to the Iriah bar ( i know, i usually ahte the shit but its Paddies Day) to meet Bernardo and some of his friends, hopefully we will be still conscious.

Hurrah!!!

Its not all bad

Alright so i think a more cheerful post is needed. Since I wrote the last post i went away for a few days to an island called Ihle Grande and came back to Rio. For the last 3 days it has rained and been relativly cold and a lot of my homesick feelings have gone. I think its because i have gone so long without being stuck inside somewhere because its cold and wet outside and i got rose-tinted glasses about it, in reality it sux and makes you go a bit crazy.

So now i am ready and rearing to go again and get on with the travelling, Rio is actually quite boring when it is wet and you are trying to save money. Flying to Bolivia on Tuesday to start that leg of the trip. Only around 39 days left before i get home and mytself and Cathy have actually planned something for every day of it, should be a laugh.

Also, I am very jealous of the guys and ho going snowboarding, that would be a larf, might try and do it in Peru if such a thing is possible.

Do you ever have a song that can change your mood so much that it scares you? it has been 5 weeks since i left New Zealand and around 8, thats 2 months, since i said goodbye to my Kraut friends. But just now, while sweltering in a Rio de Jeneiro night i heard Leona Lewis Bleedin´ Love for the first time since i left and all of a sudden felt like crying again cuz i missed the gang so much. Its an incredibly sappy pop song I know but it was playing the whole time we were hanging around together. Came out of nowhere to be honest but still put a huge downer on the evening.

I have been feeling homesick for the last few days actually, for New Zealand and Ireland. Spent 9 months in NZ and did not miss home once but now i feel like its just been an incredibly long, prolonged goodbye and i would like to get back to one or the other. South America is great but i am feeling tired, jaded of travelling and I dont feel like I am appreciating all the stuff i am seeing. I know people will say that its stupid to miss home when i will be back there for the forseeable future and that i should just enjoy SA but i just dont care any more. The idea of spending an evening in Castletroy just hanging around doing nothing appeals to me infinitely more than another week in Rio or the idea of a weekend in Fanore is vastly more preferable to a trip to Machu Pichu. Ye probably cant understand how on earth i could think like that but its true and has been for a while, a huge case of the Grass being Greener on the Other side i think.

Introduction To Brazil

Okay, so just a quick update as this computer does appear to be very popular, the joy of sharing a hostel computer between 20 people. Arrived here in Rio de Jenerio two days ago after a 22hr bus ride from Iguazu Falls. Had a brilliant time there, saw the falls on day 1 and 2 and when we went to book our tickets out found that there was noone available for 4 days so we just proceeded to get very drunk for the next few days. There was a class bunch in the hostel, which was pretty nice itself with a big courtyard and pool. Very sucky thing happened thoughwas that Cathy was uploading her photos onto Flickr and while she had perhaps 30% done someone formatted the entire memory stick which sucked. Luckily she had them saved onto the desktop, except that was deleated when the computer restarted. Long story short we no longer have photos of perhaps the most impressive thing we have seen since we arrived. Kellie-Ann has a few up on her Flickr though so check that out.

We are thinking of spending perhaps five days here in Rio then heading out 150km to sea to an island called Ihre Grande to veg out for a day or two, lots of lovely surf beaches, chill out beaches and treks to do as well. Have to get onto organising that one. Met up with a friend of mine called Bernardo that i met in New Paltz all those years ago. Was pretty cool to see him, went out for a quiet drink last night on the lagoon but might be going for a big night out on Friday. There does be a huge club in the city that he can get us on the Guest List for, might be a larf. Then on the weekend might be meeting up with Carol and Manuel, two other Braziliens i met in New Paltz.

Have to organise a wee bit here as i am nearly halfway through the South American trip. Looking into a few flights to cut down on the travel time, weird how 15 hours seems like a short trip at this stage. Re-evaluating the route we had originally planned, might cut down the Amazon trip and get a flight to the coast. Really looking forward to the Brazilian coast though. Was on Ipenema beach today catching some rays. That was a humbling experience, never saw so many examples of the perfect human form before, dont know if i will be able to go to an Irish beach after that. The plan is to spend the last 2/3 weeks beach hopping from Belem (which is actually on the equator so will be stinking hot) down to Rio. If we time it right i should have enough money for the entire way.

Opening up a bottle of whiskey at the minute, its so god awful hot, around 33*. I also have a confession to make. I have a problem. I also have to apologise to Joan for ever giving her hassle over her Coke addiction, I have become ten times worse. I am now drinking a bottle of coke at least, every day, sometimes more. Just get so hot and crave nothing more than the sweet, sweet tast of a chilled coke, hmmmmmm. Think i will go buy a 2lt bottle for my whiskey.

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

Nose to the grindstone and all that

So spent a few days here in Rotorua, kind of a diappointment to be honest. Heard lots about the thermal springs and parks around but they all cost money so fuck that. I have kind of came to the conclusion that my holiday in New Zealand is kindof at an end. I have a little over three weeks left and i think i will give up on the rest of the sightseeing and instead just go straight to Auckland and work til i leave, perhaps a few weekend trips could be cool but at this stage i dont really want to see any more beaches.

So working for a few more weeks then off to Chile i go. Like i said, i arrive in Santiago on the 6th of February then meeting Cathy, a girl i worked with in Dolans, on the 7th and we are going to run, skip and jump all the way acreoss South America. Should be fun

Happy Christmas, New Year and all that Jazz

So it has been several weeks since i last wrote to this thing so i suppose i owe ye an update. Not going to bore ye with all the nitty details but in short the last 2 months or so have probably been the best of my trip so far. I was staying in an awesome backpackers called the Stables Lodge, the weather in Napier was class and i met lots of amazing people, several of which i got pretty good friends with, as you are want to do under the circumstances.

I was working pretty hard for several weeks and in the end i had a big argument with the boss and quit. in some ways i was loath to leave the job in the sense that i actually did not mind the work. It was often boring and repetitive but i was working with loads of local Maori guys and also two friends from the hostel. So we would just spend the day weeding or apricot picking in the sun talking about everything and anything. When you are doing nothing but that for 10-11 hours a day , 5/6 days a week you get to know people pretty well.

After a four day vacation to Taupo where i swam in hot springs, did a bungee jump and then met up with Michelle for lots of alcohol, i returned to Napier to get ready for Christmas. Getting ready for Christmas of course had to involve a night when around 15 of us found this cove around 20 miles from anywhere and spent the night on the beach, sleeping on the sand in a circle around the bonfire.

Christmas was also pretty sweet. There was 38 of us and everyone helped either cook, decorate or clean up afterwards. I made lots and lots of fried potatoes and they went down very well. Lots of drinkenness ensued. Around the 26th then i said goodbye to sunny Napier and a bunch of us made our way down to Wellington, its just a 4 hour trip but we made it last 3 days, sleeping on beaches and in forests before getting to Welly on the 30th. There was no room in the inn so most f us either slept in their cars on the street or, as what was in my case, a tent in the garden. New Years itself was a series of very late nights, average 5am bedtime, lazing around on beaches and lots of alcohol.

So all in all it has been a sweet sweet few weeks, which i why yesterday it was so hard to say goodbye to everyone i met in that time and move on on my own. They had started in the North and were moving down while i was going the opposite way. I was re-reading Sarah's now almostdefunct blog and she describes it pretty well when she says the 'sundering just makes you want to curl up and die'. I know i have harped on about this a few times, when i left Dunedin and again after Queenstown but this time was so much worse, tears were involved. The bigger the high, the deeper the low it seems. Though i am in a really nice hostel in a pretty town called Wanganui at the minute i dont actually care. Whats the point of all this if you are just doing it alll by yourself.There was one particular fella that i got on really well with, a german guy called Gerrit. He reminded me a lot of Niall in that he was 6"Huge' and big. We were working in the orchard together and i kind of adopted him as a younger brother for the two months. It psucked especially to say goodbye to him and also to two of the ggirls. We have made promises to met up in Germany during the summer and since most of the people i met were german i joined their equivelent of Facebook, called Studiverzeichnis, does not exactly roll of the tongue i know.

I will get over it I know but does not stop me feeling shit about it now. I already have plnned to meet up with some friends from Queenstown and Arcscoil Ris in Auckland so that will take my mind off things. I also have sorted out my South America trip more. I actually spoke to a very polite and helpful customer service person with Quantas ands i am now definately flying into Santiago on the 6th of February and then leaving Rio de Janeiro a few months later and arriving back in Shannon, via San Paolo, London and dublin on the 24th of April. I may also have a travel companion in the form of one of the girls who i worked with in Dolans. She is looking into tickets but if everything works out according to plan she will be meeeting up with me in Shannon, which will be nice.

So apologies for the long, rambling post, but i would think after a 2 month absense it was needed. I will try and get back to the short, regular posts from here on in. I have also put up photos on my bebo and facebook if you are interested, bebo site being

www.kernunos.bebo.com

Until further notice

Will not be blogging for a while now. Think it will be a week or two before i write a proper post as

a) Ran out of money a week ago so cant afford internet cafe's
b) am now working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day so dont really have time
c) the free internet in the hostel is dial-up and has a 30min limit and since the page takes 5mins to load this page just cant do it.

will talk to all ye crazy cats later

Mad old Kiwi's 4 d Win!!

Just arrived in Napier on the east coast. Staying in a pretty sweet backpackers, my bunk is about 10ft above the ground though, should be fun if i get drunk. SO spent the weekend in Palmerstown North, not really sure why as there is not really much there, just a regulr big town with a huge university. Hitched my way up here this morning, its around 200km i think. Was a bit worried at first because they were slow ot pick up but then i got a ride to the nearest town and then was only waiting before a car pulled over. I was a bit surprised to see that the driver was an old fella but it turned out he was going the whole way to Napier so it was all good. Was a bit worried that he was going ot be like the old fella in Family Guy but turned out he was just a crazy old 84 yr old. Was a third generation scot but still counld speak a bit of scots gaelic and gave me a tour around the cuntry. Was one of those experiences tha you would never get in the tour buss or anything. Took tonnes of detours around to see bits and pieces, saw his old farm, the slaughterhouse where he worked, where an articulated lorry went off the road and ploughed through 3 houses. Did not hurt that this part of the country is really sunny and stuff

Eventually got to Napier but we had to spy on some of his tenants in a house first as it turns out they were sub-letting and i had to take pictures of the cars and stuff that were parked around, then i got a tour of the entire city and the surrounds, a mad laugh. Here in Napier for a while now, will have a look into getting a fruit-picking job for a few weeks i think and laze around the beach for a bit. Should be a good laugh.