Number 50 - Vanuatu

We finally took our first overseas family trip last November to Vanuatu. We chose Vanuatu because it was only a 3 hour flight away and also because it was a country neither David and I have been to. I've finally hit my 50th country milestone! We only went for a week but boy was it an expensive country to visit! I chose a family friendly resort (the Aquana) thinking Lucas would be happy with the children's activities and having his own nanny but alas, Lucas didn't take to any of the nannies there. They were all lovely and accommodating but Lucas just did not take to the change in people and was more clingy than usual.

Still, we did manage to kayak around the beautiful bay and do some snorkeling. We took Lucas with us on all those activities and took turns looking after him. We had all the familiarity of Australia (good ol' channel 22 even worked there!) with the lovely water views from our bungalow and yummy resort food.  It's not a place I would return though, not enough to do to justify a 2nd visit. I would much rather spend the same amount of money in Japan or a resort in Asia. Still, I'm glad it was an easy first trip for the 3 of us.

A family of 3

It's been a good 9 months since my last update and in that time, we had a baby boy! So much for the last post about a honeymoon destination! It was only a few days after the post that we found out I was pregnant.

Instead of the planned honeymoon, we ended up going on a babymoon instead when I was about 20 weeks pregnant. We decided to relax in California and get our baby shopping done for 2 weeks. It was a relaxing and productive holiday. Can't say it was all that comfortable on the 14 hour flight - if we go on another babymoon in the future, I would pick somewhere much closer.

So we had our little boy last month and have been adjusting to being parents. Holidays have been the last thing on my mind, though a few weeks before giving birth to Lucas, we did consider going on a big holiday in June this year to France. I even had the grand idea of including Japan, in what would have been a month-long break. I'm glad those plans never came to fruition as I can't imagine being on so many long haul flights with a 4-month old baby.  We tried to venture outdoors on the weekend to the Thai restaurant down the road and it was already quite challenging with all the paraphernalia we had to haul with us! So Dave will be heading to France on his own in June. I'm very jealous he gets to attend a beautiful wedding in the south of France, though he will be away for less than a week. He'll be spending more time seeing the inside of planes than visiting the beautiful French countryside.

So our travel plans have gone into hiatus for a little while during this adjustment period.  I wouldn't mind squeezing in a visit to Japan later this year when Lucas is a bit bigger as I do miss Japan.  I'm interested to see how our holidays will change now that we have a little person to accompany us!

Next up: honeymoon destination!

Where to for our new travel destination? This holiday needs to pull double-duty:

1 - It has to be a romantic honeymoon destination, and

2 - It has to be to a country I have never been to before, so that I can tick off my 50th country.

So many places to choose from!

For those sticklers for chronology, Dave and I got married earlier in the year. During our amazing 2 month holiday back in Sep-Oct last year, Dave proposed on the top of Macchu Picchu. We spent a whirlwind few months of wedding planning and got married on a perfect summer day at a reception overlooking the Sydney harbour. The day went by in a happy blur with lots of tears, laughter and a sweet surprise by our friends putting together a wedding video starring hubby himself. It was the perfect start to married life.

 We decided to postpone the honeymoon until later in the year so that we would have more time to enjoy our holiday...though we did squeeze in a fun city-island getaway in Malaysia a few weeks ago with a group of our friends. For those considering an island getaway, Berjaya resort in Langkawi was fantastic and didn't break the bank!

Back to holiday planning. Am leaning towards Central America - we can laze around the Caribbean islands or explore some ancient Mayan cities. St Lucia looks particularly amazing. I saw a travel article recently for Boracay in the Philipines, a country I have yet to visit. The white sandy beaches looked gorgeous too.

Decisions, decisions...my favourite part of holiday planning :)

The Machu Picchu instalment and back to 'real' civilisation

We've been enjoying the good life back in the US after roughing it through Peru, Chile and Bolivia. Our holiday has been such a study in extremes. Our last week in Peru was spent sleeping in our little 2 person tent, communing with nature (and the outdoor "toilets") and waking up at dawn to begin our amazing trek on the Inca trail. We survived the daily 9 hour strenuous trekking through beautiful scenery. At such altitude, the clouds would often hang lower than the mountains and each sunrise that we saw was worth the effort of waking up in the dark.

It was a tough hike, especially with our lack of training leading up to the holiday. By the time we reached the lost city of Machu Picchu, we were wincing with pain every time we took a little step. Still it was a special feeling when we finally reached the Sun gate and saw the little city far below. We were lucky the clouds parted - it was such a surreal sight with the wispy clouds forming a halo around the Inca ruins.

To all those disbelievers taking bets that Dave wouldn't make it through the trek (yes you sponsor child!), he survived a bout of food poisoning and still made it to the end. Not bad for a first trek! Although I did have to promise him no more treks after this...which is not a hard promise to make since our next holiday will be a roadtrip through the south of France...can't get more civilised than that!

So MP was our very last stop in South America. We've been living the good life in California since then; with road trips along the coastline from Los Angeles to beautiful Monterey, Vegas visits and non-stop shopping and eating. It's been wonderful spending time with my family in LA and playing with the large extended brood of kids.

The next leg of our journey will be to Asia, we're looking forward to sunning ourselves on a little island in Borneo. Ahhh bliss....

Back to Civilization! (La Paz)

Paulie and I are currently resting back in civilisation in our quaint little 1 bedroom apartment after an exhuasting 10 hr overnight bus ride from the town of Uyuni (quite a desolate place and was only notable for it´s airport and train cemetery) to La Paz which is the 2nd capital of Bolivia. According to the safety pamphlet, the total distance between the two towns is only 560Km, so here I was thinking it won´t be as long as our previous overnight ride but as we soon discovered, our ride was over uncovered roads!

The first 3 hours of the ride before the bus hit sealed roads was something similar to flying when the pilot says put your seat belts on due to turbulence! Lucky I had charged my Iphone at the bus depot so was able to listen to a few trance sets, imagining the dimly lit green lights of the bus shaking were like lasers in a club, else I would´ve had a massive headache :) The rest of the trip was fine though I was constantly being woken up by people going to the toilet at the back of the bus. We felt sorry for a Belguim couple since one of them got carsick and they asked if they could swap with us right at the front. I hope our generosity is paid back later in the trip!

So what have we been doing for the past 3 days, you might ask? Well we have trekked across the driest desert on earth - San Pedro de Atacama, with our spanish-only speaking tour guide/driver Fabio and saw spectacular natural scenery all unscathed, and without the use of the satellite phone I insisted on having as part of the tour.

There were giant volcanos towering over numerous coloured lagoons, stone rocks that were the inspiration for Savaldor Dali, geysers that bubbled up smelly gas (which of course I blamed on Paulie), and the Salar de Uyuni which is the blinding white salt flats that strech for miles in the distance and make you lose your sense of direction. We even managed to go swimming twice, once in a lagoon that was unique for the fact it had a higher salt concentration that the Dead Sea (so we couldn´t sink no matter how hard we tried) and could stand in the water upright, and another at a thermal hot spring.

We saw so many lagoons that they all start to blur together however it was seeing the flamingos (that weren`t statues in front of someone´s garden or golf course) that impressed us. Considering we were in a desert and there wasn´t much wildlife around, the sheer number at the lagoons were such a sight that both Paulie and I were a little trigger happy with our cameras taking up close shots/videos of these birds (so much so, we`ll probably have to cull a few to have enough storage space for the rest of our trip).

The next chapter of our journey is on to Copacabana, (not the one in the Barry Manalow song) but the Bolivian town where we head into Lake Titicaca, and then onto Cusco where the real trekking begins. All I can say is that I´m lucky to have Paulie as a travel partner and hopefully she won´t leave me on the side of the mountain :)

The first 10 days (Paulie´s version)

Dave wanted to upload his post first, so you can read his take of the holiday in the previous post, below is my recollection of our holiday thus far...

We have now overlanded into Chile and after 10 days we finally got to sleep in and not wake up in a mad rush to make our next connecting flight or bus ride. Ahhh bliss to enjoy a coco leaf tea that Dave went to brew this morning, time in front of a proper PC to finally respond to emails and write in this blog, and some time to reflect on our incredible trip so far.

The first few days of our holiday were spent in airports and on planes but it was all worthwhile when we finally arrived at the desert oasis of Huacachina and finally took to the sand dunes in a wild and bumpy buggy ride. The driver purposely drove over stomach-dropping hills and troughs and laughed when we all screamed in fear. We finally arrived at some sand dunes where we could sandboard down at terrific speed, controlling the direction of the board with our feet, trying not to eat too much sand on the descent. We purposely chose the afternoon sandboarding so we could enjoy our first sunset in the desert.

The next day we took a ferry ride around Isla Ballastos, touted as a mini-Gallapagos with sea lions, pelicans and beautiful coastline. I was able to enjoy about half the ride before seasickness struck. The combination of sea lion stench and choppy waters made me feel sick. As everyone else was admiring the view, I hung my head over the boat and puked. With my head in my hands, I thought the tour couldn´t get any worse until I felt a plop on my head. The seagulls overhead decided to bless me with some good luck...dave tried to make me feel better by saying it was lucky I was wearing my hat...I say it was his good luck he didnt have to clean out the poop from my hair.

The best part of that day for me was getting back to the oasis and finding a shady spot on the grass. We lay on our backs looking up at the palm trees and laughed at the absurdity of the day whilst taking silly photos with a little mascot we picked up at Sydney airport dubbed ´Rosie the Dinosaur´. I did have a reason for picking Rosie up, which I will reveal when we head into the Chilean desert in a few days time.

We took an overnight bus into Arequipa after this desert oasis, a stark contrast to the sleepy little town we spent 2 days in. We did the traditional sightseeing around this colonial city with beautiful architecture influenced by the Spanish, built with white stone from the nearly volcanoes. We wandered about the streets, spent a few hours in the famous Santa Catalina monastery that was so big it had its own winding streets and buildings. The view from the top of the monastery was beautiful, as were the bright blue and red painted stone walls that lined the citadel.

The next 2 days were spent heading into Colca Canyon, reaching altitudes of 4910m. Surprisingly Dave did not suffer from any altitude sickness, a fact he kept exclaiming throughout the trip. He even enjoyed a pisco sour that evening while everyone else nursed their headaches! To all those disbelievers out there (including me!), I dont think Machu Picchu (at 4400m) will be too painful for him. We spent the evening in a natural thermal pool relaxing in waters of 40 degrees...a nice way to cap off a long day.

The next morning we set off for the canyon to hopefully see the flying condors native to that region of Peru. There is no guarantee of seeing the condors in their natural setting and in the first half hour of waiting in the freezing cold and seeing a couple gliding in the distance, we thought that was the best we would see. To our surprise, we were treated to an amazing aerial show that was the highlight of our trip so far. It took our breaths away to see these huge birds dipping and diving so close to us.

So where to from here? We still have a packed adventure ahead of us, including a trip into the San Pedro de Atacama desert to see some stunning geysers, lagoons and the constellation unfettered by city lights. We are overlanding in a jeep through the desert from Chile into Bolivia for 3 days through freezing temperatures and altitudes of 5000m, it´s going to be physically difficult but as I keep reading, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The adventure so far!

To all of Paulie´s devoted readers, her account has not been taken over by some crazy loon here to embelish her blog, rather I'm her new (some might say foolish) traveling partner on her great south american trek. I can surely say it has been quite an experience so far! It´s day 10 of our trip and today is the first day we have managed to get some down time at a place with internet access and reflect on the adventure to write in the blog. So far we have checked out 6 airports ( Sydney, KL, Taipei, LA, Panama city, Lima), numerous bus rides (one of which we lost our tickets temporarily just before boarding, gave me a mild panic attack), and one crazy ass taxi ride crossing the Peruvian/Chile border with 3 Austrian tourists.

In between all the exhausting travelling, the highlights have been so far: Huacachina - a small oasis in the middle of the desert where we experienced a beautiful sunset at the top of the desert dunes after doing a couple of runs of sand boarding... though lying flat on your stomach sliding down since it was too steep wouldn´t really be classified as that :) We also had our first proper Peruvian meals of deep fried chicken and beef with fried potatos and rice at the oasis. After this meal Pauline was craving some Asian food so the next day she decided to eat a Thai curry for lunch - against my advice, and boy did she pay for it. Lucky we had stocked up on Imodium back in Sydney so we were covered and spent the afternoon chilling out under the trees by the water.

The other highlights have been Isla Ballantos where I got to see some amazing wildlife up close of pelicans, peguins, dolphins and sea lions, and the condors at the Colca Canyon. The David Attenbourough documentaries didn´t do it enough justice. Unfortunately Paulie spent most of the time at Isla Ballantos with her head pressed against the side of the boat seasick and even had a massive drop of bird poo land on her head! Lucky I managed to get a lot of videos and photos so that she could catch up on what she missed out on.

So the adventure continues and my concerns about altitude sickness on the Inca Trail have faded as we have reached up to 4900 metres on our way to the Colca Canyon and I was fine! I even jogged a bit on the spot to which Paulie gave me the exasperated school teacher look of disapproval!

Now the pressure of writing the first blog post has finally been relieved, hope you enjoyed it and it lived up to your expectations OTFOM :)

ps. I can´t help fight this feeling wasn´t playing at any of the airports but was shown in a movie on one of the bus rides in Lima.

A lesson in life

7 years ago I did a pilgrimage in Japan. It took me a month to walk the island of Shikoku; days of ceaseless walking, contemplating and living in the moment. I encountered innumerable kind and genuine strangers while I walked that island and I also came across people that, whilst not so kind and genuine, did teach me a valuable lesson in human nature. It was the third week of my walk when one such encounter springs to mind. I was sitting down to dinner with a table of strangers. The dinner was hosted by a kind person who would take pilgrims into his home and give them shelter for the night. The generous human spirit was common in this island of Japan where pilgrims had walked the same trail for over a thousand years. It was a polite dinner, as is often the case when a group of strangers sit down together. I conversed in my broken Japanese to those around me and it was clear I was a foreigner to the country. It took me a while before I felt the tension in the air. I could see the man at the other end of the table getting more and more agitated. As the table went quiet, I realised this old man who was in the midst of an angry tirade, was directing his anger at me. He took umbrage to the foreigners entering Japan. I, as the only foreigner on the table, became his target. The dinner was an uncomfortable affair whilst this man stood on his soap box holding forth his diatribe; as though the louder he spoke, the greater the truth. The host and others tried to intervene but the innate politeness of the Japanese meant there were no overt confrontations. I sat quietly throughout the dinner and let his baseless words roll off me.

That night I thought about this old man and how I could avoid him the next morning. Alas, the pilgrim’s trail is a well trodden path and later that morning, whilst I was alone on the trail with only trees and nature around me, I saw the old man sitting on a rock up ahead. I kept walking as there was no other way but forward and as I passed the old man, I looked him in the eye and nodded a greeting at him. He looked slightly taken aback but instinctively nodded back. And with that, I continued on my path.

That pilgrimage felt like a tiny microcosm of all the ups and downs in life, squeezed into a month. 7 years later, I can still draw on the experiences I had on my pilgrimage to guide me in the present day.

This is what that experience has taught me: it doesn’t matter how loudly someone proclaims their truth; it is still only their version coloured by their experiences and perspective in life. There are those who will take at face value what they hear. Then there are those who will listen and hopefully seek the truth. I could have held onto my anger at the injustice of this old man’s words but instead I chose to acknowledge it and continue on my path. I did not let that one bad encounter ruin all the good I experienced during the pilgrimage.

A rebirth

In anticipation of our misadventures together; this blog has been resurrected and reclaimed as the 'Adventures of the AoA'. For our dear friends (particularly of Soviet descent), we shall endeavour to amuse, inspire and bring you along our journey.

1 season to freedom

77 more days before we bunk off for 2 months to travel around the Americas!

For the past few years my to-do list remained unfinished. My wanderlust took me through every continent but South America. Every trek I finished I would promise myself, just one more...Machu Picchu will be the last. Come September, I will be able to test this theory. Will the 4 day Inca trail be the final trek before I hang up my hiking boots? For one thing, my knees will thank me. As would Dave, who I can safely say, is not exactly as excited as I am to be camping and crossing at high altitude (the hopefully inapt), "Dead Woman's Pass".

So the slow countdown begins. I need to tamp down my excitement of finally traveling through Peru, Chile, Bolivia. As a foil to the cultural odyssey, we will take another 2 weeks to cruise down the Californian coastline, followed by another 2 weeks relaxing in a couple of tropical resorts in Asia. A perfect balance between activity and inertia, ancient wonders of the world and sprawling malls, deserts and floating islands. It's going to be amazing. Can't wait...