Coming Home (10.10.08)

We are very excited about coming home tonight and feel lucky to be alive.

Since leaving home in May we have visited the ancient pyramids of Giza and the isolated desert oasis of Siwa. We have driven across the plains of southern Africa populated with elephants, hippos, lions and giraffes (two with their necks entwined) - everything but zebras, which apparently is a pretty hard feat to accomplish. We have drunk beer in supposedly haunted pubs in England and walked the underground streets of Edinburgh with its resident ghouls and witches. We got our dose of Guadi and mosaics in Barcelona. We have visited two of the biggest waterfalls on earth and seen glaciers, enormous snow capped mountain peaks, pristine lakes, whales, black and white dolphins, seals and penguins. We trekked to Machu Picchu and across Isla de Sol – the birthplace of the Incas. We have descended into the mines of Potosi and froze on the salt plains of Uyuni whilst admiring pink flamingos that seemed unconcerned by the sub zero temperatures. We’ve seen poverty and immense human suffering, road accidents, choking smog and amazing ‘festivals of litter’.

Several themes have emerged particular regularly in our blog:

1. The festival of litter.
Several countries celebrate trash disproportionately to other festivals. Egyptians litter more regularly than they either pray to Allah or kidnap infidels. During their ‘festivals of litter’ they love to throw around dirty nappies and other household trash. Bolivians also revere nappy-throwing and general littering as a religious rite. Peruvians have their moments with trash but prefer to soil their natural wonders with human waste. Argentineans are trying hard to clean up their streets but their dog lobby is powerful and their dogs not toilet-trained. Indecently, I believe South American dogs are the friendliest dogs we have come across. Karyn believes it’s because they are allowed to ‘roam-free’ unlike Australian dogs that are usually tethered making them suspicious and angry. They have to be nice to you so you feed them.

2. Money.
Whether we’re being ripped off or getting a bargain, it hard to ignore the dirty topic of money. We have enjoyed exchange rates of 98 US cents in July and felt our dollar plummet to under 70 cents in the final month of our holiday – rather distressing really. Scandalous Egyptian street merchants (with 3000 years experience in ripping off tourists), would try to bewilder us by talking Egyptain pounds, English pounds, Euros, US or pesos, fishing for what currency we were least adept with or had most of in our wallet. Finally we arrive in Santiago and are confronted with the most ludicrous currency of this holiday. One Aussie dollar buys 427 Chilean pesos (or one Aussie cent buys 4.27 pesos) and they give out lots of one-peso coins.

3. `The Lying Planet’.
Karyn and I have uncovered another Lonely Planet scandal. We are now sure that the writers of ‘Lonely Planet – South America on a shoe-string’ have never actually been to South America, nor even flown over it. We became suspicious of LP when we routinely found all the pricing estimates were off by at least 3000%. Since then we have found numerous inconsistencies and false information. Admittedly much of the cultural and natural history of South America is not even known by the local tour guides who routinely make up facts to fill in holes in their presentations.

4. Scary Bus Trips.
No matter how many South American (particularly Peruvian/Bolivian) busses I survive, I’m always uneasy when travelling on them. We’ve discussed at length their inherent dangers (maniacal driving) and tendency to plummet off cliffs but also their inadequate hygiene and bathroom stops/facilities (Imodium has become my best friend). What we haven’t mentioned was the number of books we read while travelling on these busses – many. We’ve compiled a list of the 20 individual long-distance bus-trips as a reminder to us of how many hours we spent acquainting ourselves with the South American countryside:

1. Buenos Aires – Puerto Iguazú (Argentina)
2. Foz do Iguaçu – Campo Grande (Brasil)
3. Pantanals – Corumba (Brasil)
4. Santa Cruz – Sucre (Bolivia)
5. Sucre – Potosi (Bolivia)
6. Potosi – Uyuni (Bolivia)
7. Uyuni – La Paz (Bolivia)
8. La Paz – Copacabana (Bolivia)
9. Copacabana – Puno (Bolivia – Peru)
10. Puno – Lima (Peru)
11. Cuzco – Arequipa (Peru)
12. Arequipa – Nazca (Peru)
13. Nazca – Ica (Peru)
14. Ica – Lima (Peru)
15. El Calafate – El Chanten (Argentina)
16. El Chanten – El Calafate (Argentina)
17. El Calafate – Puerto Madryn (Argentina)
18. Puerto Madryn – Bariloche (Argentina)
19. Bariloche – Buenos Aires (Argentina)
20. Buenos Aires – Santiago de Chile (Argentina – Chile)

Plus we also endured one decidedly horrible train trip from Quijarro (Bolivia) near Corumba (Brasil) to Santa Cruz (Bolivia), not to mention all the mini van trips we have been on and taxi rides with insane drivers.

By the time we arrive safe and sound back in Ringwood (presuming we have no head-banging issues with Qantas) we will have flown a total of 24 times:

1. Melbourne, Australia – Sydney, Australia
2. Sydney, Australia – Johannesburg, South Africa
3. Johannesburg, South Africa – Livingstone, Zambia
4. Livingstone, Zambia – Johannesburg, South Africa
5. Johannesburg, South Africa – Vilanculos, Mosambique
6. Vilanculos, Mosambique – Johannesburg, South Africa
7. Johannesburg, South Africa – Cape Town, South Africa
8. Cape Town, South Africa – London, UK
9. London, UK – Barcelona, Spain
10. Barcelona, Spain – Zurich, Switzerland
11. Zurich Switzerland – Cairo, Egypt
12. Cairo, Egypt – London, UK
13. London, UK – Edinburgh, UK
14. Edinburgh, UK – London, UK
15. London, UK – Madrid, Spain
16. Madrid, Spain – Buenos Aires, Argentina
17. Lima, Peru – Cuzco, Peru
18. Cuzco, Peru – Puertu Maldonado, Peru
19. Puertu Maldonado, Peru – Cuzco, Peru
20. Nazca Lines
21. Lima, Peru – Buenos Aires, Argentina
22. Buenos Aires, Argentina – El Calafate, Argentina
23. Santiago, Chile – Auckland, New Zealand
24. Auckland, New Zealand – Melbourne, Australia

it is a big pity we don´t clock up frequent flyer points for all these trips. We could probably go on another holiday.