1000km nothing but sand.... but where is the next dentist??

Our first days in South America we walked around like Zombies... 7hrs jetlag, 2 nights without sleep, 20 degrees less and a Paradise lost. But South America charmed us straight aways with its relaxed Latino attitude, the colonial architecture and - of course - the great food!!

In Santiago de Chile we did not much more than strolling around the streets, hanging out in nice street cafes and eating Parilla at "Las Vacas Gordas"; Fabri's favorite restaurant! During one of our long coffeehouse breaks we met a lovely Dutch couple (Ivo & Loraine) who left us half of their European medicine against Fabri´s rising pain with a tooth (or so, we didn´t know). Drugged with antibiotics and painkillers we thought all was fine and took a 24hrs bus ride up North to the amazing Atacama desert.

1000km only sand and 50 years no rain (it´s the driest desert of the world!!) .. but nothing was fine - the drugs didn´t work! So instead of exploring amazing San Pedro de Atacama I spent my time trying to explain in rudimentary Spanish to the nurse, the pharmacist, the supermarket guy and whoever else sold drugs in that place, what we needed. After 4 days of experimenting with all kinds of medicine we gave up, and drove back to the last oasis town 2hrs away to finally see some doctors. In the end Fabri spent his birthday (!!!) getting a devitalization of a tooth. Poverino!

Besides checking out the Chilenean health system we thoroughly enjoyed the stunning landscape of the Atacama desert: the deep blue sky, the countless volcanos at the horizion, the turquoise lagunas with its pink flamingos and the bright white salt plateaus (reminded us a lot of Bolivia). And we enjoyed our little oasis, San Pedro, which is actually a great place to hang out. Cool restaurants with open roofs - to see the stars - and fireplaces (against the temperatures around 0 degrees at night). In San Pedro we also met up again with Ivo and Loraine and spent some cool evenings chatting around the fire into the night..

Due to the Doc hunt we spent almost a week up North before we took the bus over the Andes (5000m altitude, but after the Himalaya we hardly noticed..) on a stunningly beautiful ride into Argentina heading towards Salta.

Bora Bora - one week in Paradise ...

We wouldn´t have believed it if we hadn´t been there...
Remember the "kitsch" posters we had in our teenage rooms which made us dream of white beaches, crystal clear lagoons and coconut palm trees. It is all real!

But Tahiti and its islands is more than turquoise waters. Papeete, the capital, is a busy and modern city; not really beautiful, but with outstanding food (the French influence!), astonishingly good health services (which we had to test..) and amazingly friendly people... where else in the world a taxi driver would take you for free if you didn´t have enough cash, or a family would give you a pick up to the airport seeing you waiting for the bus and waving us goodbye like old friends...

In order not to completely blow up our travelling budget (everything costs a fortune here: a sandwich 15 EUR, 1 hr Internet 24 EUR, ...) we decided to shorten our stay in French Polynesia to 8 days and spend it mainly on one island - Bora Bora. It gets even more cheesy - we booked a full week all-inclusive at Club Med. Best decision ever!! We argued it with having chosen the best price/quality ratio but actually it was just heaven being pampered for one week with great food and drinks, sleeping in comfy beds in a luxurious room and having all the services you wish. Just felt a bit misplaced with our shabby travelling clothes between 90% of neatly dressed honeymooners ;-)

Both, Bora Bora and our Club were fantastic. The airport is on a little sandbank (Motu) in the middle of turquoise waters and you get welcomed with flowers and music. Club Med has a great location with a private motu in the middle of the lagoon and all water sport activities possible (great snorkeling, sailing, windsurfing etc) - all inclusive so you can imagine how much time Fabri spent NOT in the water!!
Besides this we met some really cool and lovely couples from all over the world. Even the pretty miserable weather (2.5 days of continuous rain...) couldn´t dampen our mood. Instead we indulged in excellent food (fish, fish, fish), won as many competitions as possible ;-)) and enjoyed the chats about home and the rest of the world with Elisa and Antonio (from Tuscany!!).

As one of the highlights, we visited on our last day (the only one with deep blue sky) the whole lagoon, where we saw the coral reef, dived with sharks (small black tip ones... still I was out of the water after 3 min ;-) played with sting rays and admired all the different shades of turquoise water. It was tough to leave when Paula - the Italian GO - waved us goodbye. And we were still dreaming of our Paradise on the flight towards Easter Islands ... continuing our journey on to our last exciting continent - South America!

New Zealand... hot pools, cold winds, All Blacks and fish´n´chips

The original plan was to spend only few days in Auckland as we thought we would run out of time, but we managed to squeeze in a good trip of the north island with Mike and Adrienne. The airport pick up was pure lux for us, as the arrival at a new airport is normally more complicated, with no accommodation booked and only a vague idea of where to go to. We headed for Auckland on the first day, getting a good feel of the beaches and great view from the top of the Sky Tower with Simone praying I won't decide to bungee jump from there !! We moved to the harbour where the America's Cup boats were anchored to remind us which country we were visiting!!

We then headed north to catch on yummy fish'n'chips which we enjoyed in the car (yes restaurants close at 8 pm and the outside temperature was far from tropical). Mike and Adrienne reminded us we should start thinking about buying a house in a nice location, when they showed us the piece of land where they are planning to build their nest... 40 metres from a beach and a golf course at the back would also be a location we would look forward to settle in!!!

It was rugby time and we (Mike especially) would have not taken any room without TV for the France-NZ game which was on at 8am in the morning. Clearly we booked the only motel without a TV and the owner did not really understand why we decided for another location just to watch a world cup quarter final... luckily Adrienne's cousins' husband was in the whereabouts (2hrs away) and generously offered a roof for the 4 of us and a supportive team to watch the rugby the next morning. Everyone knows what happened so it took a while to cheer up the Kiwis who were taking it on the referee and deciding to stay well far from French champagne for the next 4 years !!

The hot water beach was what we needed to cheer up and so we digged a nice pool by the beach where the hot water coming from underground was keeping us warm and relaxed. From there we headed to the thermal land around Rotorua where the volcanic activity is strong. Craters, fumaroles and lava alternate themselves to lakes of the most unnatural colour (yellow, orange, red, etc). It was a nice walk through the park before a fun afternoon on the luge, speeding down the mountain and having a great day... The girls would have never accepted our programme if we hadn't promised to take them to the Spa where hot mineral spring waters massaged our tired bodies.

The time we had in New Zealand was great and regretted not having longer to visit the south island, but at least we will have a good excuse to return.

3500km of breathtaking landscape - heading towards Victoria

The main reason to come all the way down here was to visit another couple of lovely friends, Nicki and John and their sweet little daughters Lily and Gemma in Melbourne. We spent a fabulous time at their (amazing!!!) house in one of the swankiest quarters in Melbourne (being painfully reminded that back home not even the tiniest apartment is waiting for us ;-)

From Sydney we took the small road along the amazing Australian coast through sweet fishing villages and beautiful national parks and after more than 1000km we arrived in Melbourne; all driven by the "speeding" Italian, who talked himself out of a (deserved!) ticket. But the police in this part of the world seems more relaxed. The (friendly smiling!) officer spent more time giving us tips where to eat and sleep than a lecture on Australian speed limits. Melbourne did not impress us for its sights, but we loved its many little streets with cool cafes, trendy shops, fresh markets ... which occupied more than one of our afternoons there.

We continued our journey along the Southern Australian coast - the famous Great Ocean Road. Originally built as a War Memorial (by the war veterans of WW1) it is a breathtaking windy street all along the coast. The now 7 (originally 12) Apostles was an impressive site particularly with its strong winds and massive waves which sometimes made us doubt the ground would still remain a safe place to take pictures from...

The last night before returning to Sydney we found ourselves in the midst of cheering Geelong, where the Cats (the local footy team) had just won the Grand Final (after 40 years!!), getting everybody on the streets. We just managed to get the last place in a 50´s hotel!!

1000km later and with 20 degrees more we thoroughly enjoyed our last days in Sydney before moving on with our journey to New Zealand.

Sydney - a place to stay!

Hard to say what it was... maybe our wonderful friends (and hosts!) and the views from their living room over Sydney harbour, the white sand beaches in the middle of the city, the relaxed, "no problems" lifestyle, the people running and surfing at 7am just 5min from their appartments, the rocky ferry rides every morning from Manly to Circular Quay or the deepblue sky with 30 degrees at the beginning of spring... whatever it was, we fell instantly and irreversibly in love with Sydney!!

After some exciting 2 months of pretty rough traveling through Asia we enjoyed the familiarity and amenities of this city to the max. We truly felt at home, staying at the amazing appartment of our lovely friends Claire and Steve. We could even cook there (Pasta, of course ;-) which was better for us than any restaurant!! Spending most of our time with friends and old work colleagues we realized how much we missed the chats and deep discussions with friends, a proper place to stay (not another hotel room!!) and how great the lifestyle (and work attitude!!) on this side of the world is...

Besides partying, chatting and great wining and dining we also took our chance to see and experience many of the famous sights of this city: Harbour bridge and Opera house, the surfers at Bondi beach, the great caffe latte in one of the million cafes downtown, Darling Harbour and the Fish Market, the Botanic Gardens, the luxury villas in Palm Beach... just to name a few. And, being Harry Potter aficionados, we obviously couldn't miss the chance to see the latest movie in 3D (!!) on the greates Imax screen (apparently) of the world.

1.5 weeks in this amazing city were flying too fast, but we knew that we would return ... (after our trip to Melbourne ;-)

Snakes, spiders and leeches ... jungle trekking in Laos

Just imagine all the doggy animals you never wanted to meet live... we had them all!! After 24hrs of traveling by night buses and tuktuk we arrived in Muang Sing, a bigger village at the utmost corner of Laos (at the border to China and Myanmar)... and somehow we found ourselves arranging an an overnight trip into the jungle (5 days of beach .. and we needed some adventure again ;-). And it was a tough experience - but extremely rewarding...

Let's start with the tough part... Don't remember what was more disgusting, the leeches (Blutegel!!) slowly creeping up inside our pants sucking our blood, the large spiders sitting over our our heads in our little bamboo hut or the shouts of the guys "careful, big snake to your left in the bamboo trees"...
Compared to this, the living cockroaches (Kakerlaken) which our bus driver bought at the side of the street (a bus in Laos stops for that!) and placed them just in front of our nose were harmless (here they are considered a delicatessen, you can buy them fried on a stick everywhere!!!)

Besides these interesting encounters ;-) it was a truly amazing experience.
The landscape was stunningly beautiful, changing from neon green rice fields to dense jungle (our local guide cut our way free with a big Busch knife!!). The people are amazingly friendly and laid back (a scheduled tuktuk full of locals was waiting for us for 1.5hrs so we could reach the next city after our trekking tour - imagine this in Europe!!). But above all, we were deeply impressed by meeting the village people, who live in extremely basic conditions (more than 75% of the whole population have to life with less than 1 USD a day) and still seem to live a peaceful and happy life. This deep insight into a world as far as it can get from ours was just unique and left a lasting impression on us. And made us realize once more how privileged we are... and how little we actually have to complain or worry about...

After these intense days in Northern Laos we headed on a local bus south to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. We instantly fell in love with this beautiful and still laid back town (they can't be bothered less by the crowds of tourists..) - young monks in bright orange robes walking the streets, cozy French bistros and architecture mixes with coconut palm trees and the Mekong river... and bright golden temples blinking at every corner. If we could have changed our (so-called "flexible") flight tickets, we would have stayed another week in this wonderful country. As BA is as inflexible as it can get ;-), the Southern part of Laos has to be explored on another trip.. we come back happily!!

A change in the plan - being seduced by white sand and turquoise waters

Finally, a break from backpacking! We really needed it ;-))) It started with a luxury flight on Thai (sometimes being Senator is really usefull ;-) to Bangkok, and my refusal to head to Laos on a night bus straight away. Did not take long to convince Fabri to change our travel plans and spend some days at the beach ;-)
And off we went on another night bus (even night buses are NOT backpacking here in Thailand, but luxury!) and got stranded at this beautiful beach on the north-eastern side of Koh Pagnang where we spent our first nights, travelling the island by boat, having candle-light dinners on the beach. Our last night we celebrated with a cool beer in our hands, lying in bathtub warm water and a stunning sunset on the other side of the island (Haad Salad beach)
Not much more to add on this adventure...

Ah, almost forgot. Work is everywhere! Bumped by accident into Carsten, a colleague of mine, visiting a palace in Bangkok. The world is just too small, unbelievable. And it seems we are having some cool project locations at the moment ;-))

5 days of relaxation, fresh coconuts and sand as fine as flour (type00!!) were just perfect. But we are not getting lazy! Another 12hrs in a night bus to the north of Laos are waiting in a few hours... and off we go to the next adventure ;-)