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email 1 : 25/11/2001 - 05/12/2001
Fiji, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Argentina ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hola everyone, Well it´s only the end of day 1 in South America and it´s been such a long day... Starting at 5:30am Wed 5/12/01 Sydney time and ending now, 4:30am Thurs 6/12/01 Argentina Time... so I´m in my 37th hour of the day all up. Had a fantastic holiday in Fiji... a much needed week. Did a couple of dives, both off shore, and one was a wall dive which was just fantastic. Saw a massive turtle, a baby shark, a puffer fish, sea snakes and heaps of other cool stuff. I can appreciate fish (and other seafood) so much more from behind a mask than in a restaurant. The food at the resort was the only disappointing part. Activities, entertainment and ambiance were all outstanding. One day we went on a 20 minute walk to the local village and watched the school kid's end of year concert. They´re so adorable. The year one class had Waltzing Matilda as part of their dance/skit. That was really the only cultural type activity we did. Well, we saw the fire walking thing, and watched a cava ceremony. Cava is a drink made from mixing a member of the spearment plant family with water. It tastes like cold and dirty washing up water and kind of numbs your tongue after drinking it. Really gross. On our first night their was a Polynisian group doing a hula-type show. Those women look like they have mechanical hips... really amazing! The rest of the time we just mucked around the resort pool area, played a lot of volleyball and resorty type activities. On the last night, because we were getting picked up by the airport shuttle at 2:30am (for a 7am flight.... please explain), we decided not to sleep at all, so we went with another couple of girls from Oz, and a couple of the resort staff to the end of the beach and had a bon fire. Then, to get back to our room to get our stuff, we grabbed a couple of horses that were tied up near the beach, and rode them along the beach to our room. That was really great, especially ´cause one of the horses was just a 1.5 month old baby following her Mum. My first "Small World Experience" (SWE) happened in Fiji when we figured that one of the other guests is the brother of Lauren, whom I played soccer with last season... (or should I say, tried to play, and failed miserably)... I´ll be catching up with Lauren in the UK shortly. So that was week 1. Then I came back to Sydney and had a very hectic 2 days, farewelling my brother Jem who left for a 3 month trip to Europe a couple of hours after my flight arrived in from Fiji. The next day, Mum and I left for Canberra to go and get my working Visa (yep, I´m the queen of leaving things to the last minute!) But whilst hanging around for the 2 hours it takes them to put a stamp in my passport, I went and sat my 3rd Lotus Notes exam... (I admit that I did take a text book, and read it, in Fiji). But now I´m CLP (Certified Lotus Professional) so that´s good.... something I´ve been meaning to do for a while. Now I´m in Buenos Aires, in my hostel in San Telmo. There were no dramas on the flight or in the airports, finding a hostel or anything... which is quite unusal for me... must be Nick´s presence. At the duty free shop at Sydney Airport I met a guy called Phil who is going to be on our Antarctic cruise. Haven´t seen him since though. Sat next to this dude on the flight from Brazil, who´s invited me over for dinner with his family when I get to Sao Paulo. He´s got 2 daughters, 18 and 20, and he and his family will probably be moving to Melbourne in about 3 months. He works in the IT industry too. Something like supporting OTIS elevators or something. Then, in the queue for customs in Argentina, two other SWEs occured. Nick bumped into a guy that was a surfing buddy from a couple of years back. And Steve Hickey´s brother, Andrew, recognised me from some of Steve´s infamous uni parties.... I find this a little disturbing because the three parties Steve has had that I´ve attended all had themes to which I was appropriately attired.... 1) The 1970s. 2) Sexual Deviancy. 3) The 1950s. Hmmm, wonder which one he recognised me from. Anyway, today Nick and I explored the suburb of San Telmo in Buenos Aires today (This is where our hostel is... free internet access... woohoo!). Didn't really see anything of too much interest, but it´s been really funny communicating in Spanish. Lucky Nick has a phrase book, which I´ve found infinately useful. I´ve got a 3 step method for communicating. 1) Go into a shop, and tap the assistant on the shoulder. 2) Move so that I´m standing facing the same way as the shop assistant. 3) Find the page and point to the paragraph I need to use. It´s worked to find a newsagency that sells stationary, as opposed to the numerous news-stands which just sell newspapers and magazines, break a $USD100 note in a travel agency without purchasing anything, and appologise for walking into something ´cause I had my nose in the guide book rather than looking where I was going. So I think I´m doing okay so far. The last thing I want to say, is that I´ve just been chatting with this couple who spent a fortnight doing voluntry work in an animal orphanage type park in Bolivia. The guy was wearing a t-shirt with paw prints on it and it said something about volunteer in spanish, so I went to ask him about what it was... now it´s all over! I have to push back my flight to the UK, and go and spend a few weeks, if not a month, doing this. They look after monkeys, birds, big cats, and anything else that comes in. Last week, the 20 fully equiped army soldiers brought in some kind of little bear that had lost it´s mother. Most of the animals are rescued, or bought, from people who own them and mistreat them as pets, or from circuses. One of the jobs at the park is to take a Puma on a 7 hour jungle walk each day. What a life! And don´t worry Mum & Dad, all animals spend 3 weeks in a quarantene after being vaxinated for Rabbies and other things. There´s yet to be anyone get sick from working there. I´m so excited about doing that... It sounds like my dream month. Anyway, I´ll keep you all posted later about other things. We leave for Ushuaia, in Terra Del Fuego (the sourthern most part of Argentina) later today and then tomorrow is our cruise down to Antarctica!! Very exciting. Of course I´ve way overpacked. But everything I´ve got seems necessary. And I don´t have any makeup or a hairdryer or any of that girly type stuff. Oh well, live and learn. Also, may have slightly over done the duty free film purchase... 96 rolls. Hmm, maybe not. Also, this email is as much for my own diary type records as it is for you all to go on a bit of an arm chair adventure. So don´t forget if you lose interest, or I´m writing too much for your liking, just let me know and I´ll take you off the list. I´m not going to do a summary version though. This is it. It´s wierd writing on this Spanish keyboard too... All the symbols and puctuation marks are in the wrong spots. Hope this email finds you all happy and healthy. regards, Nique |