Hola from Bunos Aires

Hey everyone,

Sorry it's taken a while but here's our first trip update. Enjoy.

Unfortunately the start of our trip wasn't so great. Our flight was delayed 9 hours to begin with, then another hour or two at our stopover in NZ, meaning we arrived in BA roughly 30 hours after we left home. Boooo. For those thinking about it, i'd stay away from Aerolineas Argentina if possible.

Since arriving in BA, we've stayed in 4 different places in 3 very different areas of the city, downtown BA,Palermo, and now San Telmo. Downtown was very touristy in a boring kind of way. Lot's of souvenir shops and Parilla (grilled meat) restaurants. Palermo was much nicer. Lot's of interesting restaurants, bars, and shops, and it's a safe area. San Telmo is a bit more dodgy but also as good food.

Christmas was strange over here. They celebrate Christmas Eve here and at midnight everyone goes out in the street and lets off fireworks. Po and i were on the terrace of the place we were staying, enjoying a drink, when we started hearing fireworks on the street, so we raced downstairs. It's so cool, someone from our hotel came out with a huge box full of fireworks and on every street around us there was another group letting off their own fireworks. Po was worried we were going to get hit :-)

Last Sunday we went to San Telmo where there was a Sunday antique market which went for several blocks across the suburb. It was so lovely! So many beautiful things, mostly European - like brooches, lace, photos, jewelery, clothes and other typical market stuff as well. Po bought a dress and eyed off many a broach. Casey pondered a leather jacket (he is still pondering). Leather stuff is really cheap here. A nice leather jacket costs around $130 Aus. There was also some really good street buskers along the way. Definitely recommend to anyone coming here.

Afterwards we headed to the national art museum. They had some Kandinsky, Van Gogh, Degus, Picasso, Diego Rivera, and lot's of Rodin. Mostly older period stuff though. Unfortunately by this stage Casey was thoroughly burnt! So we headed back the main tourist strip for some late lunch, a hot dog, hamburger, and bottle of red later we stumbled out back to our hostel and crashed straight to sleep.

In Palermo we met another Aussie traveller who we went to see Recoletta cemetery with. It's a beautiful old cemetery full of huge, over the top mausoleums. Pretty interesting stuff.

Yesterday we went to La Boca, a pretty touristy area, but a fun one, full of bars/restaurants, tango, & markets. We finally had our first proper parilla. They bring out a grill to your table which is heaps with different types of meat. Different steaks, kidney, chorizo, blood sausage, & chicken. This is our plate after we had stuffed ourselves:

Tomorrow we leave for Santiago, where we are only planing on being for 2 days. We're a bit tired of big cities and want to get out and explore. Buenos Aires has been good but we probably should have only stayed here for 5 days or so. Still the extra time gave us the opportunity to get over our first case of Casey disease, and acclimatise. Whilst our Spanish is still horrible, we are getting a bit better at communicating to the many people here who don't speak Spanish.

So our plan from here goes roughly like this:
Santiago for a few days before heading to Mendoza (Wine Country) for a few days. Then we will get a bus to Bariloche where we are hoping to do a few weeks of Spanish classes. From there we take a few weeks heading down into Patagonia before bottoming out at Ushuaia. Hopefully we can get a flight from there to Iguazu Falls, and make our way into Paraguay where we'll probably do some more Spanish classes. From there, it's Bolivia, then into Peru to prepare for the wedding and to meet up with our wonderful friends who are able to make the journey.

Hope everyone back home had a beautiful Christmas and New Years.

Case & Po.

Happy Birthday Nat, I hope you're having a wonderful day as you truly deserve it! Let me know everything you get up to xxx

Hope everyone is having a fantastic Christmas/new years break.

Friendly farewell drinkies...

For our friends we have a preception of our own for you!

Please come to our wedding celebration and farewell drinks

at the Nude Bar,

Australian Youth Hotel 19th December 2009

from 6pm

and remain clothed

RSVP for Machu Picchu trek ~ pronto pronto!

Machu Picchu ~ splendour awaits. As the sun rises, our eyes will reflect on the incredible, sacred city.

Adventurers, send on your exact name and passport number if you are joining us on one of our three trek options. Casey and I will be going on option one: the four day, three night trek.

We will need your information before December 19th if you'd like us to organise this through the Garden House for you.

HENS - Ideas, ideas...

Heya, this is an excerpt taken from my hens email string - if you're not on it and would like to be let me know so you can get involved!

I've had most people say they are starting their trip at the start of the hens which is roughly from the Friday 26th March - Wednesday 31st March (Check our blog here)

This gives us about 6 days to play with so I must narrow my big balloon ideas down to something more.... relaxing!

What to do...?

Here's what I suggest if we're to continue with Lima > Arequipa > Lake Titicaca > Cusco:

• If people would like to fly into Lima they meet me one or two days earlier than the 26th and we bus it to Arequipa. We meet everyone else in Arequipa (26th) if they get a connecting flight as part of their ticket or book it separately (LAN fly about $180 US one way Lima > Arequipa; $265 US return)
• We spend the weekend partying and sight seeing in Arequipa / Colca Canyon, then on Monday (29th) pack up and head to Lake Titicaca - Puno. Stay overnight?
  
• From Puno, we get a train (forums are saying around $220 US???) or a bus (Inka Express is around $50 US, with stops, food and coffee; Local bus is around $8-10 US - Thorntree Forums) up to Cusco.

Otherwise, the other option is pretty much what the boys are doing - Lima > Cusco
It would be good to do something different, but I know this is good value for everyone and there's lots to see and lots of fun to be had with you lot!! I'm sure what we plan is likely to be slightly different to them :)

• Meet in Lima 26th March and spend the weekend in the Lima surrounds - must look into in more detail.
• Head up to Cusco, by plane (today I checked Star Peru for our dates and it was $152 US return Lima - Cusco) or bus - the road between Lima and Cusco is a little scary, 20 hrs roughly $60AU - we can try and split this journey and stop on the way up the mountains; check out Thorntree
• Make it to the Festival of the Lord of Tremors in Cusco and check out the party capital of Peru whilst also visiting sites such as The Sacred Valley

This blog has a good rundown of the three places in Peru we've been talking about: Lima, Arequipa and Cusco

Also, I will definitely be starting from Lima for those already booking flights. There is currently a sale on which ends 27th November through Qantas. We have a friend you can contact Kylie from Flight Centre or let me know if you get a good quote elsewhere as we have people asking all the time :)

Still alot to discuss about post wedding, but hands up if you're interested and we'll start a separate email train for that so we can get the boys involved too. Alot of talk about heading up the North coast of Peru's beached to see places like Mancora and then onto either Ecuador or Columbia.

We are leaving iin 5 weeks peeps!!!!

Buenos Noches,

popopo

xoxo

We Love Bears!

After our wedding in May, Portia and Casey will be doing 5 weeks of volunteer work.

We have decided to invest our time in trying to save the Andean Bear. Basically it will involve setting up in a remote village in Ecuador, doing lots of hiking, tracking bears, some video work for Casey, and maybe some teaching for Po.

If anyone else has the spare time you should volunteer with us. Their website is;
http://www.andeanbear.org/index.html

We will be there from the 3rd of May to the 6th of June.



Bears are awesome.

Steve's Post Wedding Adventures In the Ol' US of A

Hey all.

One of our favourite wedding guests (Steven John Pack) will be heading to the US after the wedding and was wondering if anyone else was interested in joining him. He wants to do a driving trip that will encompass LA, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite National Park from the 17th of April to the 29th. Probably involving hiking and/or trekking.

For those of you who are not familiar with Steve he is a very responsible and respectable young man as the attached picture shows.



Please enjoy Steve responsibly.

¿Tiene usted alguna pregunta?

Or do you have any questions? We would like to answer any you may have here!