Back into my favorite world!

Don't get me wrong. Australia and New Zealand (even despite the unfortunate incident in Rotorua) are great countries to travel in, with probably the world's friendliest people on them. But travelling over there is so easy, that it just takes part of the fun away from it.

I don't know if it's because I come from one of Europe's most chaotic, noisiest and craziest cities (despite recent attempts but some mayors to transform us into a civilized metropolis), but I just love Manila, although I have spent less than an hour walking along its streets. New smells, different people, different architecture, different language, money change stores in every corner, colorful jeepneys (World War 2 vehicles transformed into open public buses), crazy shopping malls (as the one where I'm now, one of the biggest I've seen in my life, with 4 levels and kilometers of shops, many of them quite sophisticated), trying to find out again what is cheap and what is expensive, discovering what to do (and what not to), finding my way around with almost no signs, that feeling of being in a place that has no resemblance whatsoever to where I come from... This is what travelling is all about! Or at least, the type of travelling I truly love.

I guess the fact that the Philippines is the only country in my trip that no one I know has ever visited makes it all even more exiting. A feeling that was increased when I boarded my flight from Hong Kong last night and only saw 3 Western faces seating around (and we're talking a full Airbus A-330, not a small Cessna), confirming this is not a very common European destination.

It's still soon to tell you what the Philippines has to offer, but I have the feeling that I'm going to like this place. Besides, where else in Asia can you be picked up by a taxi driver named "Armando" and hear words like "playa" (beach), "fiesta" (party) or "coche" (car) in people's conversations? No one speakes Spanish over here, but many Spanish words have become part of the Tagalog language. And that's part of what makes the Philippines so exciting so far, this unusual blend of different cultures (Asian, Spanish and American), that you can find nowhere else in this continent. At least that's what I think, as this is the first country I have ever visited in Asia.

Tomorrow I'll be flying to the Visayas, as group of islands that are supposed to have some great beaches and wonderful diving. I wanted to avoid the party scene of Boracay (can't take any more teenagers raving), but thought the extreme quiteness of Palawan (although supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands here) would be too much for a solo traveller.

So, in a few days I'll let you know if I did the correct choice.

Not yet in Manila...

... but on the way there.

A very unfortunate volcano in Indonesia has decided to start throwing ashes into the air forcing our flight to deviate, arriving late in Hong Kong and losing my connection (which did leave in time). As it usually happens in these cases, the flight I need to take now is delayed, so I will land in Manila no sooner than midnight, a beautiful time to arrive at a chaotic 9M people city with limited public transportation and where I've never been before. Hopefully I'll make it safely to the pension where I'll be spending the night.

My plans are either spend a day in Manila seeing the left-overs of the Spanish presence, or trying to find a cheap flight (I got somehow scaring reports about over-loaded ferries traveling between the islands) to a nice beach with good diving. Whatever I do, I will probably spend most of tomorrow in this city that I don't think I'm going to love.

Aroha Nui, Aotearoa! (Or goodbye, New Zealand!)

Ok, I lied, the next post is not from Philippines. It's just to let you know that today I finally sold the van (making again a gratifying profit) and will be leaving New Zealand (and the Southern Hemisphere) next sunday the 30th.

So, keep in mind that you will probably not be able to find me in my mobile phone after that date.

That's all, folks! Aroha Nui!

Almost ready to leave New Zealand

I arrived in Auckland yesterday, after spending a few days travelling along the Coromandel peninsula with my two Singaporean companions and Jaime, a guy from Asturias that we met in Rotorua and who also decided to joined us.

It's been fun, seeing nice views, enjoying the hot-springs in Hot Water Beach (where you dig a hole in the sand and have your own VERY HOT spa) and doing a few walks. But I must confess that I'm a little tired of travelling as a camper and the landscape in NZ is beginning to look all alike. And that, together with all the stress that the van theft meant, made me decide to cut my trip to the North of the island, which is supposed to be beatiful, but I just feel like changing countries.

So, I will spend a few days here in Auckland (hopefully very few) until I send my van, and then fly to the Philippines. So, after over 11 months in the Southern Hemisphere, the last five in quite easy to travel countries (despite the driving on the wrong side of the road), I will be back in the exotic underdeveloped world which, why deny it, it's what I enjoy most.

So those of you still interested in contacting me by phone, remember you don't have many days left.

The next post will probably be from Manila.

Van recovered, but all expensive things gone

Yesterday at 7:30 pm the police called me to tell me that my van had been found, dumped near a football field. They picked me up and we went there to see it, and I must confess I was shaking thinking what state would I found it in.

Luckily, the van was in perfect state. All locks working, ignition working and no visible damage at all. Unluckily, all my valuable stuff was gone: underwater housing for my camera, CD player, cassette adapter, all chargers, small money belt with a little money, my CDs (including the ones I bought in South America and Australia) and, what was truly the worse and most unexpected, my travel diary, my photo index and all my pictures in CD. It was a very happy and depressing moment, at the same time.

But this morning a miracle happened. The police knocked on my door at 8:00 am to let me know they had found more stuff dumped in a rubbish bin near the cemetery. And, to my most incredible happiness, my pictures, my diary and my photo index (that includes where each picture in my trip was taken and what's on it) were among those things. I cannot describe my happiness at that moment!

Still, many things are missing and the value of all mine is, without a doubt, in excess of 600 euro, but the van and that which was truly priceless to me has been found, and I couldn't be more grateful. The strange thing about all this is the things that the thieves took and left: they took my sun-screen, but left very expensive rollerblades from one of the girls; they took my Greenday CD, but left its case; they tooked a puffed dog from one of the girls, but left all the sleeping bags. Anyway, they did take all the electronics and it's going to cost me a little fortune (for my budget) to replace them.

And another good thing that happened today: the owners of the hostel managed to have one of their friends invite me for free with his company to do the rafting I was supposed to do yesterday. And the rafting was spectacular and a lot of fun, going down 3 water-falls, including one hair-raising 7-meter high one, the highest commercialy raftable in the world. It was a short trip, but I don't think rafting can get any better than that. I'll post a few pictures shortly.

Today we're staying at Rotorua because one of the hostel's owners' friend wants to organize a little outing to celebrate Janine's (one of the girls from Singapore) birthday, which was yesterday (and, as you could imagine, none of us were ready for any celebrating). Tomorrow we're heading for Coromandel and, please, keep your fingers cross so we don't have any more incidents.

Despite Rotorua has been the place where the worst thing in my trip has happened, everybody has been so nice to us here that I take with me an incredible memory of this town.

Another Photo of the Day

That's probably the only good news of today. After Sony's web page (ImageStation) selected one of my Australian pictures as Photo of the Day for 16 of December (see left margin), I just received an email saying that another picture has been selected as Picture of the Day for 22 of January.

As most of you know, photography is one of my main passions, so being rewarded with two selections in a month, among hundreds of contending photographies of incredible quality, is like a dream come true to me. So stay tune after the 22nd, where I will include the link to the winner picture in the left margin.

My van is GONE!!!

Well, yesterday we finally met our new travel companions, which happened to be 2 very nice and smiley girls from Singapore (a very interesting country, as culturally diverse as small, that I will be visiting in the future).

The two of them and I went to the Agrodome, which is some sort of farm transformed into the Northern Islands main adventure center. Bungee jumping, flying over a giant fan, zorbing (running down a hill inside a big plastic ball) or riding the Agrojet, the world fastest jetboat, are all things you can do there. Janine, one of the girls, went for zorbing and I rided the Agrojet, which was spectacular. From 0 to 100 kph in just 4 seconds, taking impossible turns along a race water circuit no wider than 4 meters. Awsome.

We went this morning to the supermaket to buy some food and start heading north, to the Coromandel Peninsula, but unfortunately, some fucking bastard decided he liked my van and what was inside it, and stole it. Yes, at the beginning I could not believe my eyes. I knew exactly where I had parked, right next to the store, in a very busy area with people coming and going, and the van just wasn't there. And yes, it had been stolen as confirmed by the video from the supermarket, today at 10:04 in the morning to be precise.

I never thought this could happen to me, much less in the placid country of New Zealand and much less in the relaxed city of Rotorua and much less in a crowded super-market in the middle of the day. But yes, unfortunately it's true. Lucky for us, we all remembered to take our small backpacks with us (I decided on the last minute to do it), where we had our passports, money, plane tickets and cameras, but still most of my stuff is missing, including priceless things for me as my travel journal, with all my anecdotes and description of places, and at least 4 CDs with my pictures that I had not yet sent home.

A few hours ago they found our backpacks, dumped in a cemetery, and the only thing that was missing from mine was my socks, underware and winter gloves (certainly not the most valuable things, which is really puzzling). And while I'm writing this, I just received a call from the police officer saying that they had found maps and stuff like that in a rubish bin. But still, the van and my most valuable things (my diary and photos) and the most expensive things (my underwater housing for the camera and CD player, none of which I expect to recover) are still missing. Certainly, the worst day in the 11 months I've been travelling, but it also helps to put small problems in perspective.

The good thing is that we've also seen the positive side of New Zealand: the police have been extremely nice with us, they've gave us toiletries and have help us find a hostel where to spend the night. And the owner of the hostel is letting us stay the night for free and has invited us to a beer tonight (which I'll have to mix with another 10 to try to get some sleep tonight).

We'll stay two days more in Rotorua hoping for the van to appear, but if that doesn't happen we'll probably split up and I'll go to Auckland and wait there a few more days before leaving the country for good and taking everything as lost.

Tal, the Israeli travel mate that was all the time saying that we would travel together for a long time and therefore we should mix together all our things, has suddenly decided that he will now travel with other Israeli girls he met (which is quite ironic for many things, not least because he was just telling us last night how he didn't want to travel with Israeli girls). It's probably better, since we were very different and were not getting along extremely well (ironically again, until yesterday, when we finally seemed to be alright).

So, I'll keep you updated since, as you can imagine, my future travel plans are quite unstable from now on, depending on how things turn out.

Summer is finally here... Please take it back!!!

Yes, summer finally arrived in New Zealand. And what an arrival! This must be a country of extremes because we changed from a cold, cloudy and rainy weather to the most unbearable heat. It's so hot that the food we buy doesn't last very long (even though we keep it in a cooler with ice) and the driving is like a Finnish sauna (but with clothes and without the shower afterwards). Anyway, the good thing is that we will finally be able to enjoy NZ's famous beaches.

We're now back in the center of the island, more exactly in Rotorua, full of thermal areas, geysers, smokey fumaroles everywhere and that lovely smell of rotten egg that sulphur provides so generously. We did a little loop alont most of the Northeast coast, through some nice little villages and towns, beautiful long beaches and meeting lots of interesting people, including one old lady that works for the Catholic Church who gaves us all sorts of cooking gear and cutlery and food FOR FREE!! Which proves my theory (since the importance of Catholicism here is minimum) that the furthest away you're from power, the nicest people you find.

I'm still traveling with the Israeli fellow and tomorrow we may be joined by 2 girls we haven't met yet (we don't even know where they're from), so it's going to be a crowded van. We'll see how we handle the situation.

Oh, and you have new picture of New Zealand in the album. By the way, has anyone noticed that one of my pictures was selected Photo of the Day by Sony's ImageStation page? No one has made any comments and it's a great deal for me! My first photographic award!

Anyway, more news in the future.

Going south... to the North Island?

The ferry from Picton, in the South island, to Wellington, in the North Island, is one of those things that, like the Panama Canal, seems to be against all logic. The same way that when you cross the Panama Canal from the Caribean to the Pacific, you go East instead of West (as you would think), when you travel from the South Island to the North Island, you go South instead of North. I know, it's a silly thing, but just one of those things I love.

Anyway, after doing a 3-day road-trip with Vic crossing the South Island most acclaimed passes (Arthur's Pass and Lewis' Pass) and spending New Year's at Christchurch as a house-wife while Vic worked 28 hours day and night, I headed North to Picton. There, I walked part of the Queen Charlotte track, one of the most underrated walks in New Zealand as it provided incredible views despite the terrible rainy weather.

The second day that I walked, to add a little stress in what many of you probably think is a very relaxed life, I had to walk 26 km of up and downs (estimated to take 9.5 hours) in just 6 hours, so I wouldn't miss my water taxi back to Picton, and 1 hour later my ferry to Wellington, in what was already was a pouring rain.

I spent two days in Wellington, visiting one of the few interesting and fun museums in the world (Te Papa) and talking to one of the crew members of the ships from the Global Challenge 2004, who had arrived in Wellington the day before after a 38-day trip from Buenos Aires. They will continue by the end of January, until they complete their round-the-world trip (a much more exhausting and, in my opinion, boring way to do it than my own).

After that I did some black-water rafting in the impressive Waitomo Caves, in the West, where the most outstanding thing for me were the thousands of glow-worms inside the caves that make the ceiling look as a night scky when you turn off your lights.

Then back to the center, to lake Taupo (Which used to be the largest volcano in the world, with a crater that is 600 square kilometers big), where I visited some of the thermal areas, enjoyed some of the hot springs and got to fly a glider and even do a looping. What an experience.

Yesterday I did the Tongariro Crossing, claimed to be the best one-day walk in the country, and it certainly was incredible. For the first time since I'm in NZ, I didn't see a single cloud in the sky. In fact, the last 3 days have been the first truly summer days since I'm here. And to give you an idea of how cold it's been, there still people skiing here, at a latitude similar of that of Southern Andalucia and in a month equivalent to July in the Northern hemisphere. So imagine what it was like in the South Island!!

Anyway, I got to climb Mt. Ngauruhoe, known by those fans of The Lord of the Rings (I'm certainly not one of them) as Mt. Doom, and the views were fantastic. So, a tiring but very rewarding walk.

And today I will depart East, with my new travel mate, Tal, a guy from Israel. We'll see how we get along and what the rest of the country is like.

As soon as I can, I'll post the new pictures from 2005.

Christmas in the antipodes

Staying at the antipodes of Spain, and space travelling still being beyond my economical reach, I can probably say I will never spend another Christmas so far away from my home. Luckily, my friend Jorge decided to spend them with me, even though that meant taking 4 flights, spending two weeks of his salary and seeing his own family one week later. And what a great, and strange feeling, to see him appear at Christchurch airport.

Everybody that knows Jorge knows he's really hyperactive, so in the 6 days he spent in New Zealand we drove over 1,000 km., visited Akaroa, rafted the Rangitata river, rode quads, jumped out of a plane at 15,000 feet (that's almost 5,000 m!!!), walked part of the Abel Tasman Coastal Track, kayaked, played chess, Othello and Asshole, exchanged Christmas presents and have a few beers (well, me, since he promised his son not to drink until Christmas day and I can confirm he kept his promise).

He left on the 26th, but I decided to stay until New Year's eve with Vic since once I leave for the North Island I will not see her again until we meet in Asia. That is, of course, if she doesn't change her mind.

We spent 3 days doing a short circuit around the center of the island (Arthur Pass, new to both of us, and Lewis Pass, new to none) and we still talk to each other, so I guess we still have a minor chance of making it to Asia. We'll see.

Anyway, that's the story of my last weeks here. New Year's Eve was pretty relaxed as Vic had to work all night at the pub and tomorrow I will be heading to Picton, on the North East of the island, where I'll spend 2 or 3 days doing some tracks before catching the ferry to the North Island.

And yes, I'll try to write more often.

The West (or more exactly Wet) Coast

Once we dropped Kat at Queenstown for her to reunite with her boyfriend back in Noosa, Australia, and after Greg spent 100 times his food budget on more addrenalin sports, we headed for the West Coast, stopping at Wanaka to enjoy the spectacular views from the summit of Roy's Peak in what probably was the finest day I've had so far in New Zealand.

Unfortunatelly, it was the same day that the brakes of our van broke (in a weekend in the middle of nowhere, to make it more interesting). And you know when you're car breaks down and you open the hood hoping to find some obvious sign of what happend (a broken tube, a smoking piece,...)? Well, that was exactly what happened to me, so despite my total lack of mechanical knowledge I was able to temporarily fix the problem.

We crossed Haast Passed and arrive at the glaciers, not as massive as the ones in South America, but the fact that they are located in the middle of a rain-forests makes them specially interesting. We walked around Fox glacier and ice-trekked on Frank Joseph (by the way, 2 of the few glaciers in the world that are still advancing), and then headed north to see Kiwis (the actual animal, not the people that live here) in Hokitika and the strange Pancake Rocks further north.

After that, we headed inland again across Lewis Pass (again in the rain) Christchurch, from where Greg would fly to the North Island and I would pick up Jorge, the first familiar face I've seen since I left Spain 10 months ago. On our way there we stopped in Kaikoura to see more seals, as every other alternative was booked out.

Again, you may have to wait and see me to get the full story.

Three's company

While in Queenstown I managed to buy a matress for my car, get the first parking ticket of my entire trip (while P10 in Australia means 10-hour maximum parking, apparently the Kiwis decided to confuse tourist by using the same sign for 10 minutes), climb to the summit of Ben Lomond to enjoy some of the best views I've seen in a long time, ride 80 kph on a jet-boat across the Shot-over gorge and meet who would be my travel partners for the next week.

Greg, a crazy 24-year old English guy with passion for football, bungy-jumping and other adrenalin-pumping experiences, high alcohol-per-dollar drinks and cheap food and Kat, a 20-year old German who loved wine, some of my Spanish music and trying to avoid tramping. Despite how different we all 3 were, we had a great time, discovering Dunedin, the Otago Peninsula, the Catlins (with its waterfalls, caves, beaches and sea lions) and, of course, Fjordland and the spectacular Milford Sound.

The full story if I had the time to write it. And given how much I'm lagging behind, don't count on it.