Bas Scheffers

Cordoba is Argentina's second largest city with a very large student population, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to do apart from looking at yet more churches, so we decided to create our own fun the first night there.

A little known quirk of Argentinian culture are the so called hoteles por hora, though most charge for at least two. We found this out in the Lonely Planet which has a nice boxed section on it in the Cordoba section. Here is how it works: you drive up to the place (usually along a main road with Las Vegas style signs to lure you in) and a number flashes on the board, this is the number of your room. Once you get there, you drive into the garage and close the door behind you before entering the actual hotel room. In a few minutes someone comes to a tiny sliding door in the wall, takes your money and lets you get on with it. Anonimity is the name of the game. The room is very much like your average crumbling four star Hilton room except that this one has a jacuzi in the corner and the you-know-the-kind TV chanels are included in the price, a nice touch. Surprisingly absent, though, was the bible in the bedside cabinet. The Gideons must not know about these places yet.

I have no doubt some end up taking paid guests there too, but according to our guide on the next day's trip it is a social service. The idea is that it gives couples still living with their respective parents somewhere to turn, though the Lonely Planet thinks it is mainly for secretaries trying to work their way up the corporate ladder during the siesta. So probably a bit of both.

The next day we went for a hike in Argentina's newest national park, the Parque Nacional Quebrada del Condorito, quite a baren landscape, but an important breeding ground for the endangered Andean Condor. It is about an 8K hike to the canyon where the Condors actually breed, through an area that should be densly forrested, but as in so many places, we humans have selfishly seen to that problem. Even though it wasn't quite mating time, we did manage to see some of these majestic birds before the clouds rolled in.

Much of the return hike, via a slightly different route, we were covered in the clouds, not being able to see more than 10 meters in front of us, which was quite cool, in both senses of the word. It being quite chilly did mean nobody - including yours truly - was up for the refreshing dip in a wide pool in one of the rivers.

After Cordoba, we were off to La Cumbre. Suposedly a hotbed of outdoor activity, but to us it seemed more like a nice place to chill. Yes, you could rent mountain bikes, but there weren't any real trails, just dirt roads from town to town and people there seemed to know only one hiking trail, but it was quite a nice one so we took it. Up the hill from the town was a rather large statue of the popular fiction character Jezus Christ, and that was where the trail started. There was also where we met up with our guide, a friendly stray dog who seemed to know the trail and led us all the way.

Not long after setting off, we entered a field with some donkeys. They didn't bother too much with us, but the dog decided to get their attention. He succeeded and they started to follow him when he came back to us, so now we had one guide and three fellow travellers. They followed us down the hill, over a rock wall and even over the creek. We thought we'd never lose them until we came to a house being built and for no obvious reason they decided they had come far enough and stayed there while we and the dog carried on.

He ended up following us all the way to town, staying with us for lunch and despite our best efforts at distracting him with some food while we hurried off, he even followed us to the hostel. Lucky for us, there he was ahead of us while we turned into lane leading up to the house and while he followed us up outside the fence, he never found the way in.

There is a lot more to see in the Central Sierras, but most of them are pretty far out of they way and take more time to get to than you have to enjoy being there if you are on a short trip like ours. So we decided to skip town to a place where those things would be easier: Bariloche in Argentinia's Lake District. First we had to go back to Cordoba and then find another bus to take us the 23 hours south, which didn't prove all that difficult or uncomfortable as it sounds. Fortunately, the sound system in the bus was busted so we got to enjoy Scary Movie 4 in silence with only Spanish subtitles, which is probably the best - if not only - way to enjoy it.

So here we are, in the lake district. I'll have to give you a quick flashback later because we are already about to leave this place. Tomorrow, we hop over the border into Chile, to their side of the Lake District and a town called Pucón.

Being at an internet cafe at a time when it is also convenient to blog (ie: we haven't made any other plans) is a bit harder than expected, so it is time for a quick digest of 10 days in Argentina.

After arriving in Buenos Aires we managed to find a place stay for the next two nights before hopping on another plane to Iguazu Falls. BsAs is, in a way, just another big, noisy city, so we decided in advance we weren't going to stay there for very long. In my experience, if you go to a very big city - say, on the scale of London, New York, Paris, etc. - you need to spend at least a week there to start to apreciate it and find the good spots to go to so you can just start to enjoy it, rather than racing around from one tourist hot spot to another. So we enjoyed just wandering around some of the shops and really did only one tourist spot: Recoleta Cemetery, where Eva Peron is burried. An interesting place; it is like a minature city of mausoleums of Buenos Aires' rich and famous. Some in perfect condition, some crumbling to rubble.

When in Argentina, you don't have much of a choice, you must have steak. Argentinian beef is very, very good and they know how to cook it well too, on a parrilla. For a quick lunch, a lomito (steak sandwich) is a good choice and for dinner (which doesn't start until at least 20:30 for an Argentine) a bife de chorizo (thick sirloin steak) is the weapon of choice. For a really good one, we went to one of the upmarket restaurants at the Puerto Madero part of town. 400 grams is the minimum they do and two of the buggers, some starters and softdrinks will set you back 125 pesos - about 23 Great British Pounds. Yes, this really was one of the most expensive parrillas in Buenos Aires.

Mind you, the lamb they do here is pretty impressive too and so is the pork. Not to mention the yummie empanadas (small pastry filled with beef, chicken or other stuffings) that make for a good snack.

The next stop was Iguazu Falls, the worlds most impressive set of waterfalls. It would have been a 24 hour coach journey but because it took us well out of the way of where we wanted to spend the rest of our time in Argentina, we decided to pay up and get flights there. Those were about what you would expect to pay for an hour and a half flight, except that everything else is so cheap here, so why not the flights? Simple, because we are foreigners, they simply take the real fare and double it for us. Nice.

The falls really are impressive, but with something this gorgeous in nature, you expect to have to work for it. It needs to be a reward for a reasonably long trek through the wilderness. Unfortunately, it is handed to you on a plate, narrow gauge theme park railway, wheelchair friendly metal boardwalks and all. Somehow it takes away from the experience quite a bit and to be honest in hindsight it doesn't seem worth the time and expense. If you are trekking through the region anyway, by all means go and see it, but it is not worth going up there from Buenos Aires just for the falls.

What did make our day at the Iguazu national park nice in the end was the Sendero Macuco nature trail of some 3.5 kilometers to the small Salto Arrechea waterfall where you could climb down and take a dip in the lagoon below. Though you will always be there with a handfull of people, this trail isn't taken by the masses of tour groups.

To get back to on our loosely planned itinerary, we needed to backtrack to Buenos Aires and we spend the evening there before boarding an overnight bus to Cordoba. We spent the afternoon and evening in the Palermo suburb; first with the stray cats in the botanical gardens before heading down to the boutique lined cosmopolitan streets with many good restaurants, bars and coffee shops. If you are ever in Buenos Aires, this is a good part of town to stay in.

Now the long distance busses in Argentina aren't exactly your daddy's Greyhounds, rather, they can be seriously comfortable. If you choose to pay for Coche-Cama, you get a double decker bus with only three seat in a row in a 2-1 configuration. Though not quite comperable to British Airways Club class, they are very much like the kind of business class seats found on US airlines; lots of leg room and it reclines rather far. I am surprised to say I slept rather well all the way to Cordoba, which is a 9 hour journey.

More on Cordoba and the rest of our trip so far soon, it is getting late here and we need to get up early for some serious hiking near Bariloche in the Lake District.

Cusco turned out to be rather a larger town than we expected, but fortunately, the center around Plaza de Armas (every city in Peru has one named that, it seems) is quite compact. Unless you are hardcore into museums, churches and the insides of other ancient buildings done up specificaly for tourists, there isn't much to do in Cusco. Which isn't really a problem as at over 3000 meters above sea level, you wouldn't have the breath to do much running around, especially climbing the steep streets. In any case, we had some practicalities to take care of between our vists to restaurants and juice bars.

First of all we needed train tickets to Machu Picchu, which required two trips as despite their hefty price (US$105 each) only cash will do and in ID obsessed South America, buying a train ticket also means presenting your passport, which Kylie didn't have on her. Secondly, the contract for the sale of the flat came through, so I had to find a net cafe where I could print this PDF and sign it. Luckily, despite it's remote location I was spoilt for choice to get it back to the UK in a timely fashion with both DHL and TNT having an office in town. (even though their websites don't seem to think they do) The contract is now safely with my solicitors and the agent tells me the buyers want to close the deal next week. Fingers crossed.

After expensive Cuba, Peruvian prices are much more reasonable, except maybe the main attraction, Machu Picchu, itself. (see below) 4 nights in budget accomodation (which is comperable to your average GBP60/night British B&B) came to US$130. A good meal will set you back less than US$15 (starter, main, softdrink) and a large glass of fresh juice on the street is a wallet draining 2 soles - $0.66. Internet access is equally cheap; 1 sole per hour. The downside is that most places (and there are many) seem to have bought nice 1.5-2.5GHz computers and then stick, oh, 96MB of RAM in them and run Windows XP, making sure that despite the fast net connection, the computer itself is slow as hell. Maybe they should ask 2 soles an hour and invest a little in their equipment.

At 6am on Wednesday morning we took the "Vistadome" train to Aguas Calientes; 4 hours out of Cusco, this is the town closest to Machu Picchu. In fact, the train is the only way to get there and apart from the busses that take you to the ruins and some utility vehicles, the town is car free. That doesn't mean you don't have to watch before crossing the road as the train tracks are the high street! The city itself is very compact and completely filled with hotels and restaurant, each and every one of which serves pizza. Luckily, that is not the only thing they serve and you can get some pretty decent more traditional Peruvian meals.

Many take this train, hurry over to the ruins and get back to Cusco in the afternoon. We decided to spend the night here and go explore Machu Picchu the next morning. A wise decission not only because it was far less crowded and the light so much better for photography early in the morning, in the afternoon it was bucketting down too. More heavy rain was predicted for the next day but we got lucky; When the alarm went at 6 am, only a thin white overcast with some breaks was to be seen, but no rain.

We got there at 7 and spent the next four hours exploring and photographing. Thanks to the light overcast the light stayed nice and soft a little longer than usual, though the downside is not many nice blue skies in the photos. Just as we got back to the town after hiking down (a drop of 500 meters) the predicted rain came back with a vengance, so much so it knocked out the town's internet connections, leaving us with nothing much else to do than have lunch and read some books in the hotel's sitting room.

Muchu Picchu is an amazing place but you can't help but wonder what made these people think it was a good idea to build a city at 2500 meters above sea level on nothing but steep mountain sides; it is not like they now get to enjoy the tourist dollars! No matter, it may be a long way to come and cost a fair amount of money, it was certainly worth it. (Train, bus and entry come to US$150/person, and that isn't even counting the airfare from Lima to Cusco, which was included in our round the world ticket) Hopefully we have come back with some great photographs, but that will be a couple of months before I get around to sorting them out, no doubt.

By popular demand, I uploaded some photos of our travels; you can view them on the Flickr account I have set up for this.

Once we are back home, we can put some more on our own web pages, including ones taken with my camera. Until them, you will have to do with a small selection taken with Kylie's camera!

Short of ending up on a flight with internet service, this will probably the highest blog entry for me ever; I am writing this from about 3326 meters above sea level in the town of Cusco, Peru.

I will write much more about our Cuban experience when I have some more time, for now saying that it certainly is an interesting place with some of the friendliest people you will find anywhere and if you get the chance you should certainly go there will have to do.

We left Havana at 6am on Saturday morning, back to Mexico City where we had a day to kill before our 23:15 overnight flight to Lima. I was not looking forward to it too much because I was expecting a too hectic and poluted city un-enjoyable for just a day visit but was pleasantly surprised. We started off at the Zócalo; the main square. Itself rather uninteresting, but the back streets is where it all happens with the mother of all street markets. Street after street lined with vendors selling anything you can think of, including lots of food. And it is dirt cheap too; 3 mini hot dogs for US$1 or 6 mini tacos for 50c. After the limitted choice of food in Cuba this was very welcome! We seemed to be part of only a few tourists, but nobody cared; no stares, no hassling and we were treated just like any local.

After paying a whopping 20c for a go-anywhere-on-the-network-single-ride ticket on the subway, we made our way to the Polanco suburb. This was entering a different world; where Zócalo; is probably the lower middle class area, Polanco is Prada, Boss, Mercedes and expensive restaurants. This was not our scene, so we soon headed for the park where we relaxed for a few hours as we had been up since 4am that morning.

The last stop on our whirlwind tour was Condesa, the place to go for a good meal. We ended up in a trendy (but not painfully so) fish bar/restaurant and with the help of a friendly local girl sat next to us in translating the menu, we managed to order some tasty local dishes to see us through for a while.

Even if you only ever have a connecting flight there (like for going to Cuba!) make sure you have a short stop-over; you will enjoy it.

When we got to the airport and worked our way to the front of the short but painfully slow check-in queue we were told, to our dismay, that the flight was delayed by almost 5 hours with a new departure time of 4am. In an unprecedented move, Lan Airlines offered us a hotel for a meal and a couple of hours sleep. I cannot help to think there must be some regulations in Mexico that forces them to do this because I have never heard of such a thing for such a relatively short delay - even if at night - anywhere else. We skipped the meal and managed to get a very welcome three to four hours sleep. The flight did indeed depart at the new time and soon we were snoozing again on board. Luckily, Lan had another flight to Cusco later in the day so we did manage to get all set up in a hotel by 3pm, not bad going.

Tomorrow we are going to explore the town and on Tuesday we take the train to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to the reason we came all this way up: Machu Picchu. We will also spend the night there so we can enjoy sunrise over the ruins the next morning and hopefully get some great shots.

Right after New York, we flew to Seattle and got on a bus to Vancouver where we met up with some friends and set of for some fun in the snow in Whistler the next morning. Later on Saturday night, my sister Lotte and cousin Jon also showed up, ready to hit the slopes on Sunday.

As luck would have it (as luck always seems to have it when I go on a ski trip) the resort had a record breaking snowfall this season. That is, right up until a week before we arrived there. We had some on the saturday we got there and another small dropping later in the week, but that was it. (obviously, right after we left, they had snow again pretty much every day) I am starting to think I should stop bothering.

That said, the first day, Sunday, was the best I probably ever had with a nice layer of powder and we were racing down the blues (that's reds to Europeans) immediately. But Monday was decidedly icy and it was then I made the only fall of the week - not even a hard one - and I managed to hit my left arm just right to pop out my shoulder. Great. This happened once before in Düsseldorf many moons ago and they say once you have done it once, it is more likely to happen again.

Ski potrol was on the case pretty quick and I managed to get it set on the mountain (with some laughing gas to take the edge off) and got a snowmobile ride down to the gondola. That was me out of the running. Well, for 24 hours anyway; I was only there for a week and the show had to go on. I did have to take it easy the rest of the week, being just too afraid to fall again. Wednesday and Thursday a little bit of extra snow, higher temperatures and a little rain, the top layer became soft enough again to do some good boarding. But friday was sheet ice again of the worst kind and I gave up after an hour or two; I just wasn't having any fun.

Kylie had three full days of lessons together with Lotte and they really improved a lot over the week and at the end of it were very comfortable on those blues and even simpler blacks as well.

After spending another night in Vancouver we got a coach down to Bellingham, WA, where 3rd cousin Erin picked us up for a family get-together at 2nd cousin Willy's place in Stanwood. It was good to see everyone again, and some not-so new borns for the first time since I last visitted over 10 years ago.

We spent two more days there; on Monday Kylie went horse riding with Willy and some of her friends and still can't get the smile of her face while Willy's husband, Rob, and I drove to Camano Island for some geocaching. We managed to find one of the caches we were looking for and I placed in the Geo Coin I picked up in the Netherlands in December. We spent Tuesday exploring Seattle a bit and buying some more travel stuff at REI, most likely the worlds greatest outdoor store.

Next up was flying back to Amsterdam (via a very snowed in New York) and then back over the Atlantic a day later to go to Mexico City, where I am writing this. Tomorrow morning we catch a flight to Havana for a week in Cuba. After crossing one continent and the Atlantic (twice) in less than three days, I for one am looking forward to spending a week in the Sun.

It seems ages ago now, but last week was spent in the Big Apple, New York. My previous run in with this city didn't have me look forward to it, but without the foul August stench of rotting trash mixed with disinfectants it turned out to be quite enjoyable.

When we got there on Friday afternoon, the first thing to do was go to the Apple Store and buy Kylie a (RED) iPod Nano as she somehow seemed to have misplaced her old Mini. If you've been to one Apple Store, you've been to them all and as they all sell the same, there was no reason to hang around.

The rest of the week was filled with all the usual tourist things like Central Park, the Empire State Building, Liberty and Ellis Islands, riding the subway, getting into bright yellow taxis, eating big steaks, going to the movies, you name it, we've done it. Kylie even went on a tour of locations made famous in various movies and TV shows!

Wednesday was Steak Night: going out to The Strip House for some fine New York steak with Hani, Terry, Kostas, Kim, Phil and Thom, all colleagues who were in New York plus some partners. As good as the steaks were, they were no match for the fillet my sister smuggles out of South Africa...

Thursday we went gallery watching and were thoroughly disappointed with the "art" photography on display, let alone the prices. Thankfully, the day before we spotted LUMAS from the back of a cab so we went back there. Almost two hours and 2 grand (US!) later we walked out knowing within a few weeks we'll receive five gorgeous framed prints at our Australian address ready to find a place in our new home when we get there. They are all very, very good digital Lambda prints of work by Alfred Eisenstaedt, Günter Rössler and Martin Munkácsi. (who was also exhibitted at the International Center of Photography while we were in New York)

They are also all over Germany and in fact we went into one in Berlin while we were there. The nice thing about the New York one was that they filtered out the kind of work that only appeals to Germans. (i.e.: bland photos of everyday scenes and blurred images of trees) If you are looking to buy some great photography to cover some cracks in the walls of your home, go to LUMAS.

One thing not to miss when you get to New York is Rice to Riches. A beautiful find by Kylie that sells many flavors of the best rice pudding you'll find anywhere.

So we arrived in New York, now well over a week ago. Of course we were subjected to the Department of Hopeless Security's US-VISIT picture taking and fingerprinting program at the Delta international terminal at JFK. I guess this is so that if we happen to blow ourselves up and they find one of our index fingers in the mess, they would have a nice digital photograph of us to put on Fox News.

All well and good, but once we went through that, I went searching for the loos. And what do you know: there is one set of toilets located so they can be reached from both airside and baggage reclaim. WTF!? I went in there fully expected to be challenged when I got out and walked back to baggage reclaim. But no such thing, nobody even keeping an eye on it. When waiting for my bags I did some observing and yes, loads of people from baggage reclaim walking in and out as well as people lining up for immigration going in before getting back in line.

Looks like they have really managed to secure their borders with their fancy electronic systems...

A couple of days after New Years, we were back in London again. The original plan was to go just for the weekend, with a management getaway/meeting the reason for going over. It became clear, however, that we needed to put some more effort into making sure the house sold, taking care of the last paperwork regarding the building of the loft.

So we went over on the thursday on a one way ticket, not planning to fly back until it was done, or there was nothing we ourselves could do anymore. We got the paperwork quite quickly, but as usual communication with the solicitors was problematic. On Wednesday we were confident we had done all we could and, after speaking to the buyer who was still very keen to complete soon, we decided to fly back the next day.

Alas, we arrived in Amsterdam with a voicemail waiting - it was the buyer saying he had pulled out. Some crap about his solicitor not being happy about the way the deeds were worded, but we never found out what exactly was wrong with them. Oh well, within 48 hours we had found a new buyer who paid 15 grand more - thanks to a once again stronger market after Christmas, a chronic housing shortage in London and all the building work being completely done; what they saw was what they would get.

Fingers crossed this time there won't be any more problems and we can have our cash by the time we get to Adelaide.

The 16th was Kylie's birthday, which we spent in Amsterdam. We didn't do much to celebrate it, but we did end up going to d'Vijff Vlieghen, a very nice restaurant that servers up haute-cuisine based on traditional Dutch food. I can't say it was the best food ever (despite some moments of brilliance) but it certainly was creative cooking with excellent service. But the main reason to go is the building; it spans many rooms in a very old building full of exposed oak beams and wooden walls adorned with old books, paintings (including some original Rembrands) and other artifacts from simpler times. On top of that they went smoke free from this year, a rarity in Amsterdam.

Last thursday, the day of the worst of the recent storms, Kylie and I boarded a train bound for the Belgian town of Brugge. It seems we were lucky to get there as later that day train and other travel in this part of Europe descended into choas with lots of people being stranded. There was a fair bit of wind and some rain, but we had a look around town for an hour or two anyway - sampling some fine chocolates along the way - before heading back to our hotel, "De Tuilerieen", a place we can really recommend for those going to Brugge. It's not the cheapest, but the room was just perfect; comfortable, beautiful and romantic. Unfortunately the pool was out of action for maintainance which was dissapointing especially on a day like that.

The next day we woke to mostly clear skies, perfect for some more exploring, chocolate and finally tucking into a Belgian Waffle with chocolate and ice cream before boarding a train back to Hilversum to stay at my mums place.

If you want a nice relaxing two-day break, we can really recommend Brugge; there isn't a whole lot to do - especially if you feel that if you have seen one old master painting, you have seen them all as that is what all the museums offer - but there are many wonderful (now smoke free!) cafes and restaurants and it's a pleasant, pretty, city to just walk around in and relax.

Just one more week in the Netherlands now before moving on to New York. We plan to spend it by going to Amsterdam for one more day tomorrow, then spend a day with my brother, followed by taking Kylie to see Rotterdam and learning how to bake a perfect applie pie from my grandfather. Finally, we will spend a day in Zeeland. I have never been there myself yet and it should be impressive to see the massive flood defences there and see some picturesque old towns.

After celebrating Christmas and various birthdays with my family in the Netherlands, Kylie and I boarded a train for Berlin on Wednesday. The just over 6 hour journey was made a bit nicer by shelling out for first class tickets. Mind you, these tickets bought from bahn.de were half the price of the 2nd class tickets ns.nl was trying to sell us. As usual, it pays to shop around.

A quick taxi ride along the still christmas-lit Ku'dam brought us to our home for the next four nights at Louisa's Place. A bit of a splurge too, but it was very nice to have a suite with proper lounge and kitchen.

Kylie always wanted to go to Berlin, and I didn't mind seeing it either. But both of us were left a little dissapointed by the city. I guess this is mostly because there isn't a heart to it, there are interesting places here and there, but no real town centre like you find in places like Prague or Budapest. Finding a nice place to eat becomes a real challenge as restaurants are scattered throughout the city and there is no real entertainment area like Duesseldorf has its Alt Stadt.

I always can't help but wonder about the obsession with the Holocaust; of course it was a terrible chapter in history and should never be forgotten, but looking at the memorials and museums about that time in history that's about the only thing that happened. What about the tens of millions of men, women in children of random nationalities and faiths that met their end in horrible ways because of Nazi policy? A little recognition to all the horrors of war would be appreciated.

Even that relic of the cold war era, Checkpoint Charlie, is decidedly unimpressive. In fact, what little you see there of the point that was the only border crossing between east and west is a replica. The hoardings around the building site it is now have some nice historical facts and photos on them, but the site really isn't worth visitting.

We had a good time, though, viewing some of the main sights but staying out of most of them. This place is way too popular and lining up in icy wind and snow behind another hundred or two people to see the insides of the Reichstag was just to much to ask. So we did what we usually do when we go somewhere, just walk around, enjoy some breaks in coffee shops and do a little (mostly) window shopping.

We did manage to meet up with one of our friends from London, Anne-Christin, and went for dinner with her and two of her friends at a restaurant we would have never found on our own. As usual in mainland Europe, it was too smokey, but an otherwise nice atmosphere and good modern-Asian food that's mostly Thai and Indonesian influenced.

On our final full day there we took the S-Bahn to Potsdam - historical playground of Germany's aristocracy and thus adorned with many, many palaces and stately homes. The main palace park is a very nice place to stroll for a couple of hours and so is the pedestrianized Brandenburger Strasse. Nice restaurants seem to be hard to find here too, but we managed to find "Zum Fliegende Hollander" in the Dutch quarter that has an excellent menu with many items that had a lot of vegetables - something we sorely needed after the Christmas extravaganza!

If you are going to Berlin, consider basing yourself in Potsdam; it is only a quick S-Bahn ride away from Berlin to see the must see sights and probably a much more relaxing place to stay.

Our next stop will be back to London this Thursday; we need to sort out a few things and make sure that the sale of our house goes through properly. On the weekend there will be a management get-together of my company there as well to talk about our strategy for this year, which includes the soon to be opened Australian office. Exciting times for all involved!