San Pedro de Atacama

Hi all.

Still safe and sound and now fluent in spanish!.....mmmm.

Quick update after a few awesome days in the far north of chile. San Pedro, in the Atacama desert.

We are a bit pressed for time, so decided to do a 2 day trip there, sandwiched by a 24 hour journey on either side!! But is was well worth it. beautifull chilled little historic farming town in the middle of the desert, 2500m above sea level and boy did we feel it. But despite this we decided to hire bikes and sand boards and head in to Death Valley - as it`s know locally - to hoon down sand dunes!! What a day!! we met a really nice couple from Northampton (Matt and Phil) on the bus and hooked up for food and then the boarding... It was top dollar ...

San Pedro was really good fun, great food and a really chilled party vibe. It was baking hot in the day and really cold at night, so all the bars and restaurants had open fires in them which was really cool. The locals however did their best to extract as much money out of the gringo's ( us ) as they possibly could, which was a bit of a shame. But never-the-less it was well worth the marathon journey!

Back in Santiago now for a night before our 5 day trip down south tomorrow morning. (Thursday)

Hope you are all well.

xxJ&Jxx

Santiago!!! safely!!!!

Our hotel above!!!
The general architecture of paris-londres!!!

Hola! Buenos dias a Santiago!!!

Yep, we made it safe and sound after a 2 hour delay leaving Auckland!!

Culture shock? mmmmmm YES!!! nothing like plopping in to a city with a foreign language that you only have only a very basic grasp of to throw you well out of your comfort zone!!!! But we are doing ok, so far we have booked a hostel room over the phone, bus tickets, and ordered pizza! awww yeah! we will be fluent before you know it!?!!

Santiago is MENTAL, really busy, with lots of music coming from every direction, including the room next to ours in the hotel. The drive in from the airport was a real eye opener! A litter filled river with lots of shack style housing on the banks.... We are staying in the Paris-Londres area right in the centre, really funky with a great little cafe nearby that we have frequnted for many a Cervessa and vino tinto in the evenings.....

We are heading off on a 22 hour bus journey north this afternnon to San Pedro, a high altitude desert town in the north, which is apparently stunning. We are there for a few days before heading back south to Satiago, then south to the lake district area where we will cross in to Argentina!!

The bus journey up and back is designated "language Learning" time.... We need it!!!!!

p.s. As a nation the chilian people are quite small, and thus I (james) am source of much fascination to many of them!! GRANDE they all laugh.... V-amusing

well over and out...

xxj&j..

A month in Wanaka.....

And what a month it was!!! We have had such a great time! Great to spend QT with Morag and Chris, and get some serious boarding in. We all came on loads!! Check the photos, mostly thanks to Mr Waring with his multitude of recording equiptment......

The Apartment we stayed in was great! perfect location near town and the cinema (Link...possibly the coolest cinema in the world) great facilities and run by a really cool couple!!!

The resort we boarded at was great too! (Cardrona) Thankfully seeing as we bought a season pass for it! it had enought to keep us occupied, and has amazing facilities for children and disabled, which was really cool to see!!!

We also visited Treble cone for a day which was a little disappointing and has a hairy road running up to it!!!

But the true gem of the trip was a club ski field called Ohau. (Linky) A true NZ ski field, one lift, hardly any people there and great back country, off piste and ridge drop runs!!! We spent an afternoon and a day there, and the night between in the Ohau Lodge, which was worth the trip in itself, 3 course breakfast and dinner included!! num num num!!!

You will be pleased to hear that we are all in one piece, with the odd strain and bruise though, but nothing major, and now ready for our next leg to Santiago on wednesday!! wooo hooooo!