Xmas and other animals

... on the subject of other animals, have we told you how crap New Zealand's native animals are? They had a bird like an ostrich that became extinct because it would walk into hunter's camps to be friendly... But most of their birds are incapable of competing with rats, mice, stoats and possums on account of having lost their ability to fly..

Let's take the Kea (Alpine parrot). Kara had to just usher one off the STATE HIGHWAY as it was waddling across (this thing is the size of a rabbit). She got it to safety where it then FLEW into a tree.... we then see a sign saying not to feed them but you can educate them to go away by throwing water at them as they are scared of water...what kind of a rubbish animal is scared of water?!? (cats count as rubbish animals).

Anyway, most birds here waddle out of the road and always do it at the very last minute...sigh.

So, Xmas was great. We spent it with Suzanne, had a BBQ, played Monopoly, walked on the beach.

Unfortunately, the day we left our luxury B&B the weather turned and it has been overcast most of the time. Except when we went to a beautiful lakeside campsite, where we got to swim in the lake. And discovered that the only creatures in NZ that are highly evolved are sand flies... they literally swarmed us. We spent a miserable evening in our van killing the zillions that had flown in, then woke up to rain. We're now not so much scratching the bites as caressing the unbitten skin, as this is such a novelty!

A very random day
So, we woke up to pouring rain. Note: pouring rain does not in anyway mean a lack of sandfly activity. That's okay we thought! we'll do something that is rain proof! We went to the nearest town, ate cake and had tea (!!) and then booked ourselves on some whitewater rafting. Great fun!!! We did have the nutter guide, who sent us sideways down rapids, took us other routes to the others just for a laugh, and got us grounded in the middle of the river at one point.... it was all pretty fun (and funny).

The sun had come out by now. We'd been hearing rumours of something called the Rainbow Gathering. A guy we'd picked up (hitch hiker not in any other way) was heading there. A woman and her boyfriend who we rafted with had gone there... then we picked another hitcher up who was heading there...

So we went to investigate...

You follow ribbons tied to trees and get to a little sign saying "Parking", having driven down a dirt track for 10km. You are met by two lovely Americans (one of whom was a presidential candidate you didn't hear about) saying "Welcome Home!" Turns out this unadvertised gaterhing takes place all over the world and you just ruck up. So we parked the van in a field, had an "orientation" (which consisted of "walk that way!") and we walked down a track in the fading sun for about an hour. Along the way we met Stripey, who was leaving but hugged us anyway and welcomed us to the land in Maori (native language of NZ tribes folk), a dude who was sawing a tree, a woman who had spent 2 years living on a commune in California, and other folk. We also saw lots of mice.

Finally got to the most beautiful valley, as the sun was going down and the moon was rising. Think Glastonbury without the middle class people, the music, the hotdog stands and about 158,000 less people...

There were about 400 people, playing instruments, singing, dancing, doing acrobatics, juggling, playing football, keeping the sacred fire going, eating (gallingly we missed dinner so someone gave us some bread) and hanging out. The festival is alcohol, meat and drug free, but we think that they must class Canabis as a herb in that case....

It was very laid back, very alternative, lots of people from all over the world, all calling each other brother and sister as the Rainbow is called a family.

we then walked back to our van in the dark (over creeks and through one river) to spend a happy half hour chatting to Becky and Vermin (the US welcomers) who had stayed up to check we got back ok (Aw! Bless!!).

So. The question we have is: Would you have enjoyed it? :-)
If you've been thinking "Sounds like a bunch of hippies, where was the nearest Spa hotel/ Burger King" then perhaps not for you.

If you have been thiniking "Great to spend time with the global family in a beautiful spot and not shower for a while and use the self dug shitters" then we recommend it.

Note: Martin kept his views on self sustaining organic food to himself.

New Year's Eve plans
So, we headed to a campsite near Lake Brunner with the plan of spending the 30th and 31st there. As we waited for Suzanne (who had been camping in the wilderness) to rejoin us, it became apparent we had parked up in the middle of a youth club. Teenagers everywhere!! Drinking! Shouting! And playing really, really bad music.

To be fair, last night they all quieted down by 10.30pm and didn't seem disrespectful or troublesome. It's just the air was thick with teenage hormones and cheap beer...

So, we shot off this morning.

We are now in the middle of the Southern Alps. There is a DOC (Dept of Conservation) campsite (with a shelter to go inside and cook in!! Woohoo!!), a DOC centre, this internet, and ... a PUB!

Our NYE plan is thus:
- go eat some lunch. Something warm as it is friggin freezing here
- go do the walk until we find the 150kmph winds, then turn back down the mountain
- remember to sign back in as we filled in a form saying where we were going
- eat dinner
- attend DOC lecture at 7.30pm on something. It will be inside. And warm. And the DOC officers looked really cool to hang out with (like most Kiwis, dead friendly)
- drink as much booze from off license as we can to forget how cold it is. Some of you may have spotted the irony in leaving a bunch of teenagers to go do this
- go to pub
- all sleep in the camper van tonight as it would be too cruel to make Suzanne sleep in a tent in this weather while we have "In Cod we trust" to sleep in.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Photos

Xmas Eve Breakfast (yes, we are transmitting from the future)

Last night, cockle hunting

Beach at Collingwood (did we mention we see this from where we are staying...)

View from the beach of where we are staying. Note: Salmon a van in the left hand corner.

Us on the Abel Tasman Coastal Path. Note for fellas: make wife stand downhill to look extra big and manly.

Note for gals. Remove husband from photo to get great photo of beautiful view.

Beach our water taxi dropped us off at.

Campsite caretaker to Martin: "Can you drive a tractor?"
Martin: "I can try"
Caretaker: "Good enough"
Martin towed the guy's massive mobile home, with his wife still inside, to the other side of the campsite.

First night in South Island we stayed at a DOC campsite. There were hundreds of crabs under every rock on the beach. This was the biggest.

Are you sure this is Wellington? Where is everyone?

Travels in the North and South Island

Hello and Happy Xmas to you all!! (yes, it's tomorrow but hey, we won't be online then!).

Well, team Stanford successfully negotiated the windy Crook Straits, between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. To be fair, the crossing was as flat as a pancake. The most painful bit was having to watch some truly awful films enroute.

Before we left the North Island we did have a few little adventures...

... we made it to New Zealand's capital city, Wellington... imagine England's capital city the last Saturday before Xmas... then imagine the opposite... we got off our train in the city's main train station... and there was NO-ONE there - apart from other confused looking tourists. Seriously, you could have cluster bombed the place and only caused a few minor grazes...We struggled to find our way to the "heart" of the city as there was no-one to ask...

Anyway, we did make our way through the deserted streets (Saturday at midday!! Half the shops were shut!!) to our destination. We feared the Zombie Apocalypse, but these fears were unfounded.

After arranging a rather nice B&B for Kara's parents when we see them out here in Jan (Hooray!!), we went to the Te Papa museum. Awesome. Worth a trip to Wellington just for that. Even Martin loved it and he hates museums, and culture, and being educated (Please note this is not a failing on his parents' behalf but his own fault. They tried, poor people. That is why we have been away for 4 months and only been in 4 museums.Sigh). The highlight was a preserved collossal squid, complete with video of it being caught. Amazing. There was also loads of interactive stuff (things to bang, jump on, spin, touch, crawl into, watch etc). We even watched a 3D film.

Other things of note were that Martin ran up Colonial Knob Hill. This amused us greatly. We are regressing.

South Island

We spent two days at the Abel Tasman National Park. You know when you see a postcard of paradise like beaches, with white sand, turquoise water and little islands in the bays.. they're taken at the Abel Tasman.

Team Stanford looked a bit silly when one evening we went for a swim as the tide was going out. The water level drops by 4metres at this time of the year. Martin walked out about 300m and was still only knee deep. Sheep faced, we walked the long way back to shore!

THE thing to do here is the Abel Tasman coastal track (3 to 4 days). We had no time for that so we did the next best option. We took a water taxi (!) to a spot 23km up the coast and walked back from there. Like most of their kind, our taxi driver was chatty, fun, and gave us a mini sight seeing tour as we sped up the coastline (really sped. He was running late). The only mistake we made was deciding to cut the last 3 km of the track out as we were bored of it and walking it across the beach at low tide. Yes, we ended up wading through pools of water and walking on squidgy sand. The previous 20km didn't hurt but the last 3 did!

Christmas Plans
We're now settled into Collingwod for Xmas. This is a small (50 houses, one pub) village at the north of Golden Bay (Golden Bay - does what it says). We booked a B&B before we left the UK, one that Ben and Juliette stayed in. It has become obvious that we were much more discerning in our choice of accommodation back when we had salaries! The place is gorgeous! We have our own bedroom and bathroom plus full use of the whole house with dining room, 2 living rooms, a fully equppied kitchen, laundry room, 2 verandahs, and decking for the garden. Pete (the owner) has already put the BBQ out for us for tomorrow. www.lewishouse.co.nz if you want to see more.

The best bit is it's right on the beach front. we had breakfast on the verandah overlooking the sea this morning, in the sun. We hear about your white Xmas and raise you...

Last night we went cockle hunting at low tide and now have a bucket of cockles waiting for us to cook them up for dinner tonight.

Tomorrow, Xmas day, we are joined by a friend of Kara's, who's also travelling. We have meat. we have beer. We have the cheapest Xmas pudding money can buy. We have the sun. We'll miss you all, but it's going to be great :-)

Photos

Church in historic Greytown (history has a slightly different definition out here. If it's older than your mum, it's historic).

Another one.

River leading up to the gorge we stayed near.

Martin giving some van loving. There are loads of view points and picnic stops at the side of the highway. We are having cups of tea in them.

View from the view point :-)

Volcano walk. Sulphur smells bad (yes, that smoke is volcanic fumes).

View on the way down.

Things that have happened

• We drove to a gorge and spent a night there. Very pleasant. Awesome stars - could see the milky way. This is what happens when you hit a campsite in the middle of nowhere, down 10km of dirt track.
• Martin found a hill he couldn't run up...
• ...and a group of middle aged hikers who were walking up it... that thing was steep!
• But we did have a pleasant solar shower (you fill it up with water, put it on top of the camper van and let the sun heat it up. Then hang it from a tree and "shower". Degree of nudity depends on your level of modesty) in the baking sun.
• We drove to a Victorian town with old (for NZ) buildings. The fishseller wanted to swap vehicles.
• We went chocolate tasting. We totally tasted as much as we were able to without looking too pikey. We did buy some too. Weird flavours - sea salt, tequila & salt & lime, cranberry, Myrhh& franckinsense & gold, pepper.. anyway. The conclusion: chocolate is nice.
• New name for the van: Osalmon Van Laden

There is a lot of trust here. We are staying in the DOC campsites where you just put money in an envelope in a slotted box. Last night's privately owned camp site was a case of a note, attached to the door, saying "If we don't catch up with you, leave the money under the mat." Martin thinks there is a group of bounty style avengers who track down those that abuse the trust...

So, on Sunday we go to the South Island. All very good. If we don't update again before Xmas, hope you all have a really good one.

PS Martin is jealous of the snow!

Photos of what we've been doing

One of the volcanoes, as seen at 7am










Kara in the gorge, stepping out of one of the tunnels








The pool got better and much bigger than this!









Cathedral Bay, Coromandel Peninsula. We took this by balancing the camera on a rock...








View of our coastal walk to Cathedral Bay

The Happy Campers

Our beach holiday continued in fine form. We went for a walk along some great coast, popping down to different bays. At one, called Stingray Bay, an Irish woman and her bloke lent us their snorkelling gear... yes, there were stingrays in the sea. In shallow water. Note for the worriers amongst you (you know who you are) our wild life policy is very much observe and leave alone, not "Let's see what it does when it's angry". This is why there was never any danger of us doing an Irwin.

From there, we headed to Hot Water Beach. Guess what was there? The Kiwis have a very simple approach to naming places. it's the Maori name or the bloody obvious.

So, we got to Hot Water Beach, cadged a spade off an English couple (it may sound like we are pikeying our way round this country - that's cos we are), and dug our own pit on the beach. When the tide is out, you can dig down to the hot springs that come up, and make your own pool of hot water. In some cases, boiling hot water. Too hot to sit in. Anyway, we joined up with the other couple and through a combination of brute strength and engineering expertise made the finest hot pool on the beach... and sat in it for 2 hours, going pruny, 'til the tide came in and bathed us in cold water and destroyed our pool.

Martin then leapt into the sea and... almost trod on another stingray!!

From there, we thought we'd save our pennies (NZ is proving pricey for us and really screwing our budget up) and camp in a free campsite. Water from a stream, compost toilet provided.

Martin decided to make his own entertainment and go for a run along one of the trekking trails. Think undergrowth, muddy pools, sheer drops, steep hills... fantastic! He arrived back sweaty, muddy, scratched and quite happy.

The next day we did a more sedate walk through a gorge to some old gold mines. It was cool as there were old tunnels (all safe) to walk through and explore. Luckily we'd bought a torch. Whose battery was dying. Hmmm. it turns out that taking a tall blonde man into a tunnel and making him walk first is a great way of 1) finding all obstacles in advance and 2) blocking any possible light that might be up ahead.

Apparently Martin would prefer to have Kit with him in a survival situation as Kara's instinct in a tricky spot is to push him ahead of her. Kara thinks this shows an impeccable survivial instinct on her behalf.

we then decided to do the NZ classic one day trek, across the Tongariro Crossing. Think Mount Doom (LOTR reference for geeks). This goes past not one but two active volcanoes. The trek is busy with tourists and has some tough spots. At one point, Kara slipped while walking along an edge covered in ice, with a 20 foot drop below her. Luckily the sulphuric fumes from the volcano covered the ensuing "smell of fear".

It is a great trek (19.3km) and you see some awesome views. The volcanoes were covered in snow too, which was stunning. We got up to 1900 metres, which is pretty high!

We're now ambling our way down to Wellington quite slowly, stopping at view points and little towns like this, Feilding. Yes, it is spelt wrong. Although there is a sign in the tourist info that explains this is all fine and down to some illiterate general that the place is named after and they are very proud of it. So that's all good.

Things we have done and discovered

Stuff we have done

• stayed at a sucession of campsites with awesome locations.
• got up every day and swum in the sea
• sometimes ended the day by swimming in the sea
• enjoying the sun and the views and walks along great beaches
• Met a group of people in 5 wheelers. These are great big trailers that are the size of a small flat. We met 2 couples who are retired and spending it travelling NZ in these. We got invited in to one and had a cup of tea and biscuit and a chat. Very pleasant.
• doing a sea cliff trek in the blazing sun. Yow! That sun burn hurts!
• Reached the northern most point of New Zealand, by walking there from our campsite.
• Spent a long time in the Salmonavan (named by Simon), especially today...
• ... yes, there is a god and in return for us gloating about the nice weather we ended up spending 2 hours in the Auckland equivalent of Kingston Upon Thames / Croydon/ the hood driving round in that blazing sun, totally and utterly lost...
• ... fortunately team work is strong with Team Stanford and we finally reached the Coromandel Peninsula... lush green hills, sandy beaches... we swam the stress off with an evening dip in the sea followed by beer and a BBQ.

Boring stuff we have done

• Visited Pac n Save supermarket, twice. It's like ASDA but with nice fish.
• Driven. A lot.
• Laundry. Hand wash.
• Used toliets where you can put the paper down the loo. This is still a novelty after 3 months of not being able to do that in South America.
• Hot showers today that aren't from our little solar shower. This is a bag we fill with water each morning and put on the roof of our van while we go swimming. If we are lucky, the sun heats it up. We then hang it from a tree to get a shower.
• We're camped in a holiday park now so hot showers galore. But this costs money so soon we'll be back to DOC (Dept of Conservation) sites. Cheap. Self composting loos. Maybe drinking water. Maybe not. Great locations though.
• We had our first mince pies today. Weird. In 26 degree heat. WRONG!!

Stuff we have discovered

• Internet is blinkin expensive!! Sorry we've not replied to your emails but when we get somewhere cheaper we will. And we currently can't upload photos.
• Sleeping in the Salmonavan is surprisingly comfortable. Seriously, we're averaging 10 hours sleep a night and we think we might be inching towards 12. How did we ever go to work on a mere 7 hours a night, we wonder.
• NZ is truly beautiful. Volcanic hills covered in tropical forest, ferns, grass... black sandy beaches, white sandy beaches, clear blue water, lakes, sea... it has it all...
• ...but the road network around Auckland is like some Dante version of hell and makes the M25 look pleasant. At least we signpost things in the UK!
• ...Kara really does hate Auckland.
• Salmonavan can either overtake or have air conditioning, but not both. We are in the crawler lane. A lot. Lorries laden with goods overtake us.
• Kiwis (the people) are a pretty chilled out and friendly lot. They live in shorts. Even the roadworkers, office workers... everyone. In shorts.
• NZ is in for a long hot summer. Yay!!
• We are not getting used to Christmas in the sun.
• But they still have images of robins and snow out here. Odd!
• Apparently Xmas is divided into 2 schools out here - traditionalists who have a roast and the rest who have a BBQ.

Well, tomorrow we're going to get up and walk the 5 mins to the golden sandy beach and go for a swim before deciding whether we go for a coastal walk, do sea kayaking, snorkel or dive. To make you feel better, we are on a really tight budget out here so we will probably do the walk.

Photos (this is what the sun looks like, UK dwellers)

Pink and fishy.

View of campsite.

Martin eating ice-cream 30 minutes ago at Russell.

Yes, we know this is badly laid out but it's an expensive connection and hard to work on. xxx

New Zealand

We wrote this on Thursday morning NZ time but couldn't publish it 'til now.

We were going to do a summary about our experiences in South America. But we're tired. It is now in the past and Team Stanford is all about the future. If you're really bothered, harrass us and we'll do it later.





So, freaky thing, the International Dateline. We've lost Wednesday. Do we get it back? With interest? We thing we'd like a Saturday morning at some point later in life, as compensation.



Today (Sunday afternoon)

So, Auckland. We've been there before. It was raining. Lots. We had chores to do. We were jet lagged. We were staying in a 4star hotel. So we went out for food (Japanese, Indian, Italian), ordered room service once, and used the gym and swimming pool. And watched TV. That is in English. This was a bit of a change from the backpacker vibe, especially when we realised we were in the largest hotel in New Zealand. The one that hosts APEC conferences.



With some trepidation, we picked up our camper van yesterday. What would it be like? Had we made a huge mistake leaving South America, which we loved so much? Martin had been standing out in SA so much, would we miss being obvious tourists? Luckily, our camper van is pink with fish painted all over it. We're trying to think of a name for it along the lines of pink and fishy. Will keep you updated on that one.

We got it and headed north out of Auckland to the Bay of Islands. Except we didn't quite make as we stopped off at a lovely campsite a few miles south. One cold beer, a beautiful sunset, and dinner later, we were sold on the camper va n idea.

It got better. We woke up this morning to beautiful sunshine, had a quick swim in the sea, then went on a couple of hours walk through forests,swamps and round the coast. Life is sweet.

Cultural note
Sweet as. Kiwi phrase for anything cool, good, nice. Used A LOT by our camper van dudes. Sweet.

Cultural note 2.
In Argentina they wore jumpers and designer jeans in warm weather and regarded anyone doing differently as slightly strange.

In Chile, they wore T.Shirts and cheaper jeans.

In New Zealand, a man can be 6 foot 2, tall, blonde, sunburnt, wearing shorts and sandals, and blend in perfectly.

Valparaiso

The port is in an awesome bowl of land with mountains heading down to the sea. At one point it was the busiest port in South America but the Panama Canal nicely shafted it.

The bridge leads to an ascensor (lift) to take you down to the other part of town.

They get everywhere...

Sunglasses and Xmas decorations. What's wrong?

Election campaigning Chilean style. The Chilean spin doctors obviously decided subtlety was best left to other countries. Kara is working on posters like this for her dad's next campaign...

Lots of old, graceful buildings. This belongs to the Chilean Navy. When approximately 50% of your living space is sea front, you take the navy quite seriously.

Street scene. Doesn't quite convey how fast they are all moving.

For 3 pound each, we had a two course meal. This was our main course. Chocca full of sea food.

Typical view here.

Dinner with Celiane and Fabian.


Food market. This is just one stall. There were about 50 like this.

Fish, luverly fish. We've seen lots of stalls like this in Chile.

Valparaiso and couch surfing

We arrived in Valaparaiso as sun was setting on Thursday night, to see the lights twinkling on the 20 or more hills that sit in a bowl around a port area. We promise you you have never seen anything like this, a truly unique city.

After an "interesting" short taxi ride (who'd have thought you could do a hairpin bend, going up a 45 degree slope, while in 3rd gear), we arrived on the narrow street where our couch surfing hosts, Celiane and Fabian live.

But what is couch surfing? No Simon, it is not the lowest form of swinging. It is a way to meet locals as you travel and enjoy seeing a place from their point of view. www.couchsurfing.org for more info.

Within an hour of arriving we were tucking into a hot meal, a glass of wine and having a complicated but fun 3 language conversation in French, Spanish and English with Celiane, Fabian and Celiane's uncle.

Yesterday Fabian showed us round his city. It is hillier than Bristol. Much hillier. So hilly in fact, they have a series of very old lifts to take you up them. Which were all shut yesterday. Our legs hurt. Fabian said the local obesity is quite amusing as no-one can put weight on their lower halves leading to a lot of top heavy poeple (not in a good Page 3 way. Note - this is Martin's comment!!)

Valparaiso (or Valpo) is described in guidebooks as having a "faded charm" ie it is run down and dirtier than anywhere else we have been, with lots of street art / grafitti, the mangiest dogs yet spotted in South America, a compliment of cats living off all the fish from the markets, and chaotic traffic. But... it is great. It's lively, beautiful, loads of hidden gems, and surprisingly friendly for a big city.

We spent yesteday taking in the different scenes, with Fabian taking us to fantastic view points. We had lunch at the local fish market, where there are quite a few restaurants, cats, kittens, and people playing football with dogs. Then in the evening they took us to their favourite restaurant in a very well known barrio, with lots of brightly coloured houses clinging to the edge of hills.

Today was market day. So much fruit and veg. So many colours. Such great prices. Great fun, great atmosphere.

Errr... we kind of caused the loo to flood (clean water not dirty) so have just spent a bit of time mopping the floor of the three storey house we are in... all part of the fun...fortunately our hosts are out and it's very warm, so we expect everything to dry nicely. If they ask any questions, we'll say we mopped the floor out of gratitude...

Photos of Santiago & Santa Cruz

Vineyard we visited.

Lots of great views like this.

busy street, Santiago.

Plaza de las Armas, Santiago's main square.

View across the Plaza de las Armas of Santiago's cathedral.

View of the city. Check out how close the Andes are!!!

The hill in the right was where we took the other photo of the view from. Our hostal is just to the right of that hill too.

We told you it's a large statue.

Bright lights, big city

We continued our exploring of Santiago yesterday by heading to the barrio (neighbourhood) of Bella Vista. It's a chilled out, arty, crafty type area with brightly coloured houses and lots of craft stalls, cafes, bars and restaurants.

It also has a great big hill, which is a promontory (good word) of the Andes, there with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary.

When we got to the top to see arresting (another good word) views of the city, we went to the huge statue of the virgin. Inside it were... two teenagers snogging each others' faces off. Maybe they thought the location was a form of contraception?

We also met up with another Engish couple, friends of Ros. Together we went on a cultural tour of Santiago involving, ale, wine, sushi, cake, dingy bars and various street performers (the little drummer boy is our favourite. Seen him twice now).

The best laid plans....

So we woke up this morning with a plan. We were going to go back to the coast, further north than we had been before, for a few days of sun and sea before hitting the city of Valparaiso on Thursday. 3 nights in Valparaiso, then Santiago (capital city) on Sunday, ready to fly out Tuesday.

It turns out you can't get a bus north out of Santa Cruz without going via Santiago. That's fine, we get to Santiago and change to a bus for the coast... but....we got to Santiago and couldn't be bothered to wait 2 hours at a bus station, so we dug out a flyer for a hostal, and have spent a pleasant afternoon in the capital city.

It's not the coast, but at least we've been enjoying the sunshine, rather than sitting on a packed bus with smooching teenagers. In fact, we are surrounded by people smooching. We just went up to a tower on a hill with a park, full of people smooching. If you burnt it down you'd halve the teenage pregnancy rates.

Santiago is a bustling, busy city. We hit the Plaza de Las Armas - a central square with the cathedral and various other grandiose buildings on its edges. Here we figured, do as the locals do. So we bought ice-cream and sat on a bench. We decided not to embarrass ourselves and join the games of chess taking place in an old bandstand.

Make me beautiful
The observant among you might have noticed how Martin has been looking a bit bouffant and Kara a tad tangle-headed.

We've been talking about getting our barnets trimmed for a while but have been a bit too scared (Kara's not had a haircut since the UK).

By accident, we found ourselves in the hairdressers mall. We kid you not. An entire mall devoted to hair salons. We picked a unisex one, with friendly looking folk and sat down in adjacent chairs, like gossiping old ladies. The clues were there. The 80s music. The way they were all smiling in a kind of we're laughing at you but in a nice way. The man with the long, curly black hair and tattooes (think Slash from Guns n Roses but a bit more feminine). The slightly camp older man doing Kara's hair. The semi pornographic, but discrete, photos of buff young men. The photo of Martin's hair stylist (Ahmed) dressed in drag.

Yep, we managed to find Santiago's gay hair salon. And our hair looks great.

Oh I do like to be beside the sea side...

Martin ordering powdered mash. He fits in quite well.

Church in main plaza, Santa Cruz.



Beach, Pichelemu

Breakfast at Pichelemu, in the sun.

Sunset.

Little critters on the beach. We think these might be krill...not sure though.

Pelican. We think.