Friends and Foes at the Lagoon

Donny made a new friend on our walk around Laguna Nimez just outside of El Calafate.  She was a pretty black lab with a red collar, and obviously belonged to someone, but she was out for a walk on her own.  She accompanied us around the lagoon fetching the stick that seemed to be an [...]

Ushuaia Cruise

Braving cold and icy winds, we took a boat ride on the Beagle Channel to see several nearby islands and a lighthouse.  They call Ushuaia ¨Fin del Mundo,¨ the End of the World, so some think the lighthouse is the one Jules Verne refers to in his novel The Lighthouse at the End of the [...]

Tierra del Fuego

We spent Thanksgiving hiking in Tierra del Fuego National Park.  The route took us along the coast and then through a mixture of Patagonic and High Andes forest.  The “lenga” covers mountain slopes.  The most eye-catching were guindo trees most of which had large nodules with an interesting fungus growing out of them.  They were like bunches of orange-colored [...]

Goodby Tango City

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, we wandered around the neighborhood of San Telmo.  The street market was interesting, with people playing all kinds of music and selling crafts, art, clothes, antiques…pretty much anything you can imagine.  It was HOT, and we ended up trying to escape the heat in a little 2nd floor spot called [...]

Buenos Aires

After an uneventful flight on a starved-for-services Aerolineas Argentinas flight, we arrived safely in Buenos Aires.  The first night we quicklydiscovered how much our schedule will be changing.  With the campervan, we tried to race to the shared kitchen by 5 or 6 both to beat the rush that would soon hog the burners and counter [...]

The Coromandel

Why head back to the city so soon when we could have one more pretty drive in the country?  We spent our last day and a half on the Coromandel Peninsula, exploring hidden beaches and camping by a stream.  It was a great way to wrap up the New Zealand leg of this journey. 
We sadly [...]

Waitomo

Though we were sorely tempted to join in some caving, abseil, blackwater rafting adventures in Waitomo, time and money were short, so we opted for a long walk followed by a leisurely tour of the Glowworm Cave.  The cave was known by Maori long before any Europeans had been there.  The guide was entertaining, and the [...]

Rotorua

Population-wise Rotorua is a big city (over 70,000 or so).  We were advised it might seem overly commercial for our liking, but we wanted to experience the often talked about geothermal area that’s still bubbling, spouting and boiling away.  The area is also very special in Maori history, and today there are lots of cultural [...]

Taupo

After our Alpine Crossing we needed a day of taking it easy, so we head to the thermal pools near Taupo.  I had a very relaxing mud wrap and massage while Donny tried to catch me in the book we’re trying to finish, The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King.  It’s a great, [...]

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

From a base in Ohakune (carrot capital of NZ, and a huge ski and snoboarding center in winter), we did an amazing 19.4k walk called the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, in Tongariro National Park.  The full trek is multi-day, but this full-day hike was plenty for us, with some steep terrain heading up and an even [...]