Coming home

I needed to change my sydney-perth flight to a sydney-melbourne flight so i could go see frannie, and was advised to see the people at the LAN airlines desk to change my ticket. So we got to the airport 6 hours early and i waited in line (people in south america are really into pushing in). When i explained my situation to the girl at the desk she said there was nothing she could do, and it was a Qantas issue, which i thought was very odd, as both fran and i had been told more than once that this was what i needed to do. A $40 phone call to qantas confirmed that LAN had to change my ticket but they refused again. GRRR! I decided to take it on the chin and just see what i could do once i was in Sydney. Luckily however, as we approached the gate I overheard someone else modifying thier ticket and asked the same worker if he could modify mine, to which he replied that all he could with such short notice was only check me in to the santiago-syd flight which would make it more flexible for me once i got to sydney. So with that done, a really boring chick flick about a kid who thinks he's an alien and a 2 hour stopover in Auckland, New Zealand we arrived in Sydney.

We grabbed our bags, went through customs and Steve and luke checked in as per normal
and i was directed to the Qantas sales desk to modify my ticket. It turns out that there where rules on my ticket that would not let Qantas modify it and all i could do was delay the perth flight and book a return ticket to melbourne. I ran down to the free internet booth, and after it crashing and restarting on me mid-booking i managed to score a (expensive) flight to melbourne within the next hour. When i got back to the qantas desk i was served by another lady who said what i was trying to do was impossible and her collegues misinformed me. So i got a knife played stabby mc stabby-stab in her face. Well not really, but I was close to, if only i had a knife... In reality i told her it was bullshit and pleaded with her to help me out. So she charged me $50 and told me to be back here by 7pm in a week to catch the flight to perth. GRR!

I managed to see Steeve and Luke in the lounge before they flew back to Perth and filled them in on the shenanigans that had occured, and with a peck on the cheek they where off. Teary eyed i got into the fetal position and rocked away until my flight to melbourne was called, in the realisation that this was the end of the most super dooper holiday of my life.

But then i got to Melbourne, got to see Frannie and then my family in Perth and it made everything all good again.

THE END

Santiago V2

After skydiving, we went out to the SUPER PARILLA and then jumped on a bus back to Santiago.

Our nine hour journey was interrupted waaay to early in the morning with a border crossing, which meant getting out of the bus and getting our passports stamped. At customs they lined us up like criminals and we watched every bag go through the xray scanner and a sniffer dog went through our hand luggage as it was placed infront of us. On the bus again, i quickly fell asleep and woke an unknown time later to a semi-full bus parked on the side of the road, the bus had broken down! so we waited around for a while (i mean we slept more..) and boarded the next bus. Unknown to me this bus had super magical time travel powers and as soon as i closed my eyes i fell asleep, only to be woken as we pulled into the Santiago bus terminal.

We just chilled out at the hostel for a majority of the day and met up with Anya, bob and lucy from Mendoza for a few drinks that night, for some last night in South AMerica Celebrations. I had my first piscola, it was yummy. After we bid them a fairwell, me, luke and a british guy from the hostel went for a walk around to find another bar/discoteque. We must have walked atleast 8 blocks with no bar in sight so decided to call it a night and head back for some sleepies.

Skydiving continued

Just to recap..

THE PLANES ENGINE HAD JUST CAUGHT ON FIRE, so after putting it out and the plane starting successfuly (minus the fire this time), the instructor assured me all was fine, and if it caught on fire again we where fine because we had a parachute.

It took about 20minutes for us to pass above the clouds and get to the right altitude, i was supprisingly calm and had totally forgotten about the whole engine catching fire thing. When the instructor tapped me on the shoulder as a signal to kneel so he could hook himself on to me my heart began to race. It was really surreal looking out the back window of the plane, with the snow capped andes not far off into the distance, getting blasted with cold air, kneeling 30cm from the edge of a doorless aeroplane.

We shuffled backwards and i clumsily pulled my legs out of the plane. Now for the scariest bit where i let go and he lowers me down so im no longer sitting on anything and hes supporting all of my wieght by holding onto the door frame. The only thing between me and the ground is alot of sky and 4 metal clips... he then tells me that all i need to do is relax and remember to keep my legs together, and not to pull the ejection cord because thats his job. I cross my arms across my chest and without warning we spiral out of the plane.

AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

My face feels like ive had 20 botox sessions at one time its pulled back so tight and i can feel my cheeks wobbling and it sounds lkike im stuck inside a hurricane, i open my arms... i begin to flail like ive never flailed before. The clouds are coming up at us sooooo fast and everything is so overwhelming i cant even think. He pulls the chute and with lots of noise and a huge jolt it feels like we pretty much totally stopped mid-air and everything goes silent and we start to glide through a huge cloud... they dont taste like fairy-floss, trust me. As we come out the other side he tells me to grab the steering cable things and we practice the landing. I was amazed how manouverable the sail was, pulling both cords down we could pretty much stop dead in the sky, and pulling one we could spin around on the spot. We had a bit of trouble locating the DROPZONE at first and spent a while flailing around looking for it in between the huge patches of wineries and little patches of really poor housing.

The landing was a total success and i remained sitting on my bum in the grass for a bit as i dwelled on what i had just done. I was still a bit shaky and my heart was still pumping for atleast 10 minutes after as i took my jumpsuit off and handed it to macca.

The rest of the day was spent sitting around on the grass and watching the other three do thier thing.

Skydiving.. the real time...

When we woke up the wind was down and it was only slightly cloudy, yaaay! The guy picked us up and we drove out to the DROPZONE again.

When we got there we weighed ourselfs (ive put on 6 kilos hehe yummy steak) and he told me i was to go first. AHH! So i donned my jumpsuit and he harnessed me up, dang it was tight. We ran through the jump again and they prepped the plane. I was alot less scared than i thought i would be given the fact that in half an hour id be falling out of a plane with only a parachute saving me from becoming pulp.

So the planes on the runway, we're packed into this cozy little two seater plane and they try to start the engine. it stalls. they try again. it stalls. So the instructor gets out to check the engine, AND ITS FUCKING ON FIRE! he quickly gets the extinguisher and i bail very very quickly. After he assures me everythings ok we get back into the plane.

to be continued... heheh

oh and im not lying,.., this actually happened

Skydiving!!!!

The next morning i presented herb with his complimentary koala and thanked him for not taking offence to my Arnold Swartzanegger jokes as he was leaving that day.

We got picked up for skydiving and headed out on a hour van ride to the DROPZONE (i shall refer to the airport as this from now on to make myself appear cooler), the guy spoke pretty good english and we picked up his wife and two kids on the way. He explained that the weather wasnt ideal (it was overcast and really windy) but it might clear up and would be happy to pick us up again tomorrow if it didnt happen today.

When we arrived he ran us though the jump and showed us vidoes of the right and wrong things to do and how sydiving really isnt that dangerous compared to driving around in south america (very very true). Then we just sat around and waited... and waited.. and slept on the grass... and waited. He was even getting impatient! After a good (well boring) three hours we decided to give up and try again tomorrow. By the time we got back to the hostel we had been out for 5 hours but had caught up on some well needed sleep.

It was herbs last night with us so we feasted like gods at another parilla (he even bought slacks because this one had a strict dress code)!

Mendoza Wineries

On our second day in mendoza we caught the bus to the outskirts of town to visit some wineries. We hired bikes from a family and headed out in the rain, using a small map with only a few roads on it for directions. Mendozas wine region is the wine capital of Argentina (and possibly south america) so we where expecting margaret river-esque sytle nice country roads and maybe pretty little cottages, oh how we where wrong. It was more riding around highbury or another really small, run town country town, only with crapper roads with oversized, over-flowing drains. The fact toppled power-poles where used to stop cars entering both sides of the main street due to road works highlighted the fact that this town wasn't going to live up to aesthetic expectations.

As we turned off the main road onto the gravel it started pissing down with rain wich certainly didnt impress Herbert, but made it more of an adventure trying to avoid the splashes from passing cars. After parking our bikes (mostly in the rain) we entered the first winery. Inside we where greeted by two collumns of huge oak barrels which we walked between, and a strong smell of red wine filled the air. The winery doubled as a musem and many old corking and seperating machines where on display. They ran a tour but the one we started to follow was in Spanish so we hung around the tasting area until the group came back and had a lovely glass of Malbec, which was supprisingly drinkable for me. It was still raining when we left but soon cleared up on the way to the next winery.

This one was a small operation run by a family and the girl who took us around was the daughter of the owner. She explained they did the entire process by hand, from using scissors to cut the grapes off the bushes to hand filling, cleaning and labeling the bottles herself. You could tell that she and her family really loved what they do and where proud of thier products.

For lunch we headed out to a place where they either made sundried tomatoes or grew olives, i couldnt really work it out, they cooked a freaking good steak though. Herb picked out a smashing bottle of red from the wine list and cheered up majorly after his morale-breaking overly cooked bife de choriso the night before.

That night we had parilla again, it was herberts first! ..... we soon found out that it was pronounced 'pariyah' not 'parrila' because two l's make a y sound, the term 'parrilla geurillas' didnt flow anymore, stupid spanish.

Mendoza

Of the bus trips so far, the ride from Santiago to Mendoza was the worst by far. The bus was small, cramped, bumpy and had intermittent bursts of air-conditioning wich where hardly effective; not only this, it took us 9 hours to go 400k´s! Santiago and Mendoza are on opposite sides of the mountain range so pretty much the whole journey was winding up and down mountains and following the river that ran between the valleys. There was little to no vegitation so we didnt even have any pretty trees to look out at! Additional to this it took over an hour for us to be processed at the border... grr.. i have lots of pretty stamps now though.

Mendoza is situated pretty much in the middle of the desert and is known for its wines and adventure sports (ie. white water rafting, mountain climbing). The overall town is pretty run down but it has pretty, tree lined streets and lots of shopping malls. Today we just walked around town and checked out the malls and should spend the rest of the day chilling at the hostel which has super facilities like in-room internets, table tennis, foos-ball (which Herb tells me is german for footbal..) a pool and a big keg of red wine that we have unlimited access to! When the young son of the owner hit us with his sales pitch as we exited the bus i was skeptical, but it is probably the best hostel we have stayed at in our travels. Run out of the family home it has spacious rooms, air conditioning and as the owner was super proud of; a big toilet and a bathwith a showerhead a big bigger than a cd. "two people can even shower together!" he said excitedly, "just dont drop the soap..".

We have another 3 days here wich should be a great way to wind up the trip, we´re going on a bycicle ride of the wineries tomorrow and then SKYDIVING the following day!

i have broken my camera so the upload today is the last of the photies:(

5 days to go, see you all soon!