Rotarua

Rotarua is an intriguing place. Home of the Zorb (those giant balls that you get inside and roll down a hill in) and also home of the world's highest raftable waterfall (we have done neither of these activities yet but hope to do them on our way back to Auckland). When we first arrived there, our driver took us to a big, boiling lake that would kill you within 7 seconds if you fell in it. He told us how he used to come as a child with his dad and boil eggs on the little pockets of water around the lake. There is steam coming out of the ground all over the town and natural mud pools and hot pools everywhere. We decided to stay in the YHA there as we had a discount card and after we had dropped off our stuff in the room, we met up with our Malaysian friend Lee and walked around the town with her, visiting the lakes, museum and park. We then went to Pak'n'save (NZ's cheapest supermarket, that is like an Ikea for food – a big warehouse with birds flying around inside). We bough a cooked chicken, potatoes and cauliflower and then went back to Lee's hostel where we cooked and ate together and she gave us some Cadbury's chocolate for pudding. (The hostel was run by a dj hippie guy who played loud dance music on his decks all night.).

The next day the Magic shuttle took us to a kind of natural marvels theme park in Rotarua where you can see all kind of wonders. The first thing we saw were boiling, bubbling mood pools and then we went to watch a geyser erupt. After this, we entered a park where there are red, blue, yellow and fluorescent green lakes. NZ is often referred to as the world under a microscope because it has so many natural wonders packed into it. At the airport on the way in, we had to go through strict controls to check we weren't carrying and organic matter in that would disrupt the ecosystems. One sign said 'NZ was undiscovered for x,00000 years, meaning it has some of the most unique ecosystems on earth (eg. 90% of the birds in NZ only exist in NZ), please help us to conserve this by not treading any foreign mud in on your shoes (or something along these lines). The woman looked at the bottom of my shoes to check I didn't have any Bolivian soil on there and luckily they were clean enough to go through. Anyway, back onto Rotarua. The park had lakes like those we had seen in Boliva (so we weren't THAT wowed by them) but they were pretty impressive, especially the fluorescent green one. There was also a big sulphur lake that blew clouds of sulphur over you and various multicoloured caves formed from exotic mineral reactions. After the park, we had to wait about an hour because the Magic bus had broken down somewhere. When it came, it took us to Taupo, where it stopped at Hukka falls so that we could get out and take photos. It was, without a doubt, the bluest, clearest natural water I have ever seen in my life! The falls were stunning and you could go on a speed boat on the river they ran into. The guide told us that no one has ever successfully rafted the falls and of those that canoe them, only 1 in 8 survive. After the falls, we were dropped off at our hostel, Urban retreat in the town centre of Taupo. Taupo is a gorgeous town by the lake where many New Zealanders spend Christmas in the sun. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we had booked ourselves into a private twin room as a Christmas treat back in July when we made the booking, so that was nice as I had forgotten all about it. So, here we are in Taupo for Christmas. It was a great choice because there are so many good things to do here and we have treated ourselves to a skydive and bungy jump (because Taupo is the cheapest place in NZ to do both). I absolutely loved the skydive as it is something I have wanted to do my whole life and it was even better than I expected. The bungy was an achievement for me as it has long been something I have said I will never do as it is too scary. However, it wasn't that bad, once I mustered the courage to throw myself off and it was the highest water touch bungy in NZ. I am really glad we chose one over water because it was so refreshing to be dunked. To round off a thrilling Christmas eve, we treated ourselves to a slap up Indian in the restaurant around the corner from our hostel. Lovely.

Photos: North Island

Auckland to Rotarua

Auckland city centre

So, time to catch up on what has happened since we arrived in NZ. We arrived in Auckland early in the morning after a 12 hour flight (around 5am). We caught a bus from the airport to Auckland city centre, to our hostel - Base. Base is a big backpackers chain in New Zealand and I was actually dreading it because I had images in my mind of it just being a big party hostel full of English gap yahs. I was pleasantly surprised however, to find a big (very big), clean, hotel/ halls of residence type building right in the city centre with not so many English, but more Asians. We had a 4 bed dorm to ourselves and it was really quiet. The kitchen was huge compared to what we had been used to in South America (about 8 sinks, and 8 hobs), and it was like a students union, with a travel agents, dvd room and computer room. It was like being back at uni. However, one massive down point was that it did not have free internet. In fact, nowhere in New Zealand has free internet, apart from McDonalds, which has it, but wont let our net book connect to it for some reason. So if we want to go online, we have to pay and there is usually a download restriction. We were so jet lagged when we got there on our first day and really wanted to sleep, but instead, we had showers (and blowdried our hair for the first time in 3 months!) and then we went out for the day to look around Auckland. Jemma bought a new macpac fleece and we had a subway. I keep getting headaches at the moment which is really annoying. I am 99% sure its linked to my back, because if I press on the right point on my back, it relieves the pain, so I have been sitting with a water bottle pressed into my back. Anyway, a bit off subject there. After the subway, we went to bed, exhausted.

The next morning we had to be up early to catch our magic bus. We are travelling around NZ on the Magic bus network. We have a pass and can hop on hop off all around both Islands. Its kind of a tour bus but you aren’t stuck with the group because you can hop off any time you like and stay where you want, but you have a driver who gives you all the information about where you are and what there is to do. You also have the 'magic bible' which is a handbook of all the activities and hostels in NZ. It takes all of the hard work out of travelling. So the next morning we had the free breakfast in the hostel and then caught the magic bus outside, where we were greeted by our driver 'Buzz' who made us do a Maori style greeting where we had to rub our nose against his. New Zealanders are very big on their Maori culture and like to remind you of it at every opportunity. All the towns have Maori names and all the schools and buildings too. The bus driver keeps playing Maori songs and going on about the haka (or however its spelt) all the time. We had a lovely set of people on our bus and got talking to a girl from Malaysia, one from Vietnam and one from Korea. We spent the rest of our time with them. Our first stop was Hobbiton where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. We had lunch there but didn't go onto the set as it was too expensive. We actually bumped into a Scottish couple we had met in Bolivia whilst horse riding which was very strange. That was our first cross-continent reunion. After Hobbiton, we carried on to Rotarua which is the stinkiest place I have ever been in my life. It is a town built on bubling mud pools of sulphur and the whole place smells of rotten eggs...

Christmas Eve Bungy

SKYDIVE

I just did a skydive over lake Taupo. Best experience EVER!! Check out the photos here: Jenn's skydive!
and the video here: Jenn's skydive vid

Merry Christmas from the skies of New Zealand!

New Zealand

We are now in New Zealand and the first thing I have to report is that there is NO INTERNET. Well, certainly no free internet which is very frustrating. We are now in a hostel for Xmas which has 3 computers and you are allowed 20 mins each but the queue is always massive (so many English people here, unfortunately) and it is just impossible to get online. I guess I will have to blog offline and then post it all at once at the end! (If I can find wifi anywhere!). You would think that the internet situation would be better in a developed country than it is in a developing one, but no. I miss speaking Spanish and I miss cheap prices. I also miss being the only English person. I am enjoying having hand soap and toilet roll though.

Santiago de Chile

How the city looks in winter with the Andes in the background (we are in summer)

We have been in Santiago now for about 6 days and tomorrow we fly to New Zealand! I am writing this in bed, having just gotten back from a huge (free) opera concert in the city centre. Santiago has been fantastic. When we first arrived, we took a taxi to a hostel that we looked up in our guide book and it turned out to be great. We had a 6 bed dorm all to ourselves in a friendly little hostel with a very cosy feel to it. On our first night here, we had a little girl about 7 sharing the room with us and we watched the X factor final. On our first day, we wandered to the local supermarket and were overjoyed with what we found – the first proper supermarket we have seen since we arrived in South America. I celebrated by buying a box of cocopops and ate them with full fat milk. The weather has been perfect – 32 degrees and the city is really modern, clean and organised. It is nothing like the rest of South America. On the second day, we wandered up to a famous viewing point on top of a hill next to our hostel (Santa Lucia) and randomly bumped in to Ben and Waime – our two friends from Cusco! So we spent the rest of the day with them and then went round to theirs at night for drinks (they were renting an apartment). We then went clubbing and went to watch a drag queen, who Jemma ended up successfully heckling in Spanish. We didn’t get in until 6am and we spent most of the next day in bed. Then, yesterday, my friend Georg from Germany arrived (he had come to visit us) and on Friday night we went on the Santiago pubcrawl which is a big organised pub crawl where they give you free shots and wine/ beer. We met a really nice Chilean guy and spent most the night with him.

Earlier in the day we also visited another town outside of Santiago called Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. We went with Georg and another German boy from the hostel on a tour bus that took us to the main sights and the beach. I wasn't that impressed with the other towns. Santiago is great because its modern but the rest of Chile just seems a bit unexciting and too similar to the UK. I don't feel we have missed out by not spending too long here. The people are really friendly but the men can be very chauvinistic – a lot more than in the other countries. For example, tonight I asked a police man for directions, and he replied (in Spanish) to Georg, who cannot speak a word of Spanish, rather than replying to me! Also, the Spanish dialect here is meant to be really hard to understand but in my opinion it is easier than Argentinian. All in all, we have had a really relaxing time in Santiago and feel really at home here. The city is modern, the hostel is very friendly and the staff make you feel part of a family. Also, we have had some good nights out and seen old friends. It has been a perfect way to round off our South American experience and I can honestly say, I am really going to miss this continent!

 Chile photos: Santiago

The summary I wrote on Facebook earlier:

New day, new continent. Tomorrow we fly to New Zealand for the next chapter in our rtw trip. Will miss: friendly Latino people, speaking Spanish, brilliant hostels, South American culture and favourable exchange rates. Will not miss: not being able to flush the toilet roll, having to carry toilet roll everywhere, finding black hairs in every other meal, and, having to bathe in hand sanitiser.

Adiós Perú ...

Guinea pig. Yum

After Huacachina we took a long bus ride to Arequipa. We arrived there late on a Friday night and had to go to a late night take away to get food (we were starving). We stayed in the flying dog again and got a 15% discount. We only intended to stay one night and then leave the next day to get to the border with Chile. Funnily enough, at breakfast, we bumped into a Spanish guy we had met on our Inca jungle trail, so that was really nice to catch up with him and the hostel breakfast was excellent - the first cereal I had had in 2 months! We then went to the local bus station to get a cheap bus to the border town of Tacna. We arrived too late to get the bus with the toilet, so we had no choice but to get on a bus with no toilet - for 7 hours. This was hard! But luckily we stopped after about 5 hours and we all scuttled off to go to the toilet. We arrived in Tacna and decided to cross the border straight away into Chile. We went to the bus station and a man tried to sell us immigration cards for $10 (when they're supposed to be free) and was hassling us telling us he would take us over the border. I was too tired to think straight and said we should spend the night in Tacna and then go over the border early the next morning. So this is what we did. We got a good deal on a hotel room in the town centre and then went out for our last meal in Peru, where we tried the local delicacy - guinea pig. Yuk!
The next morning, we went to the station early and shared a taxi over the border with a Chilean family. It was all quite a smooth process and only cost about £5.
Once over the border, we went to the bus station and most buses were booked out to go to Santiago due to the proximity of Christmas. However, we managed to get two cama seats on a direct coach to Santiago. 30 hours later, we were in Santiago! :)

Peru photos