HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: A cold bottle of water on a boiling hot day-it’s the simple things
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Missing my window seat for pictures
WORD OF THE DAY: You got the Key? I’ve got the Secret…..
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 821KM
We were in the tuck for 12 hours today, well less the hour for lunch, a massive 831KM travelled on a mix of paved and unpaved road worked roads, and then we had a 12 hour stop from the time we pitched the tents to leaving the next morning. 12 hours-821Km-12 hours.
So I can safely say that today was a travel day. We have been warned it will be a looooooong day. I like these days, plug in my music and I can go all day, if my IPod goes flat, then look out. As long as I have some juice in my computer I can always charge it back that way if all the charge spots are taken on the truck. I have a backup back-up plan and that is my Playbook. That little invention I bought in London in July last year and I am lucky to have used that more than 20 times. As usual the gadget girl got a hold of me and Iooking back I probably didn’t need to buy it. My ex-husband would be saying I told you so right about now, along with the IPad I bought when it first got released and is currently sitting back in Australia. What can I say, I can’t help myself. The good/bad news is I think my IPod is on its way out. I originally thought it was my charger, when I plugged it into the wall it would come up with error messages and beep on and off till I fiddled with the cord, held my mouth in the right way and then it would start charging. But I used H’s charger yesterday and it kept beeping on and off like 15 times, charging, not charging, charging…it was driving me nuts. I charge it via my computer and I don’t have any problems, so I am not really sure what the deal is. It has frozen twice in the last month, so maybe when I get to the States I might buy one duty free. The one I have is a first generation IPod, I think I’ve had it for 3-4 years and the battery life on it is slowly deteriorating. I can just get a full days charge in the truck out of it now, just. It has had a good life, besides the last 10 months of continual use, even when I was home it was used every day whether for my walks or driving to work, I would plug it in, every day. So my commute to work was 45 minutes each way so in a day that’s 1.5 hours. Multiply that by 365 days, even though I didn’t work the whole 365, take into account longer traffic days and the Saturdays I worked it would all even out, then multiply that by 3 years at least that’s 1642 hours of listening not taking into account my 3 overseas trips a year and the walking hours. So my IPod has done some hard yards and I have certainly got my money’s worth from Apple. How many people can say that? And no this is not any excuse to get a new one, with a camera….ohhhhhh that would be fun!
Today also happens to be day 50 of the tour for me and day 64 for the Quito guys. 50 days on one tour is pretty impressive. Africa was 60 days and we thought back then ‘that’ was a long time to be on tour. Well we still have 105 days to go and THAT does and IS a long time to be on tour. But my countdown for now is Rio as the day we arrive in Zeme also fly’s in that evening and THAT is in 32 days’ time. He still needs to get his Brazil and Venezuela visa’s, which he is going to get that started on Monday, so fingers crossed he has everything he needs. I am not a big fan of consulates as they hold all the cards and have the ‘power’ but let’s just think positive thoughts. After our run with the Paraguay Consulate, which we are still Paraguay visa less and here I am telling Zeme to get a move on with his visa’s, I also still need to obtain my Brazil visa, which I have made an appointment in Buenos Aires for the 25th January, so double fingers crossed for me and for Z. How bad would that be he got his visa and for some freaky reason I didn’t get mine. Yeah, not funny and not going to happen.
There’s not much happening outside as we drive. Initially leaving Bariloche there were some more lakes and mountains but leaving the Seven Lakes Road the landscape just became ….landscape. Nothing special. I used the morning to type up Barlioche’s blog. I don’t feel so guilty using my computer on the truck v’s when we are in camp, as I am sure some of the newbies faces are saying, get off the computer and go and explore. I don’t care. I started my blog before I left, I have readers who come back and read it, I type it every day, and it needs to be done. They’ll be thanking me when they go home and try and finish their diary or loading pictures and wonder where and what happened that day and my blog will be their first point of reference. I know it and they would be crazy not to use it. All the hard work has been done.
It finally hit me today that I am losing 3 of my postcard buddies today. I am a postcard freak writer. I had 5 core people that I religiously send postcard to from each new town. Dave in Ireland, Sean in Oz, Zeme in Ethiopia, My beautiful God-daughters in Oz and recently added the wonderful Lisa in New Zealand. Well Dave is moving to Oz in 2 week’s time to start a new life in our wonderful country, Sean is moving to Victoria to start his university degree in Medicine and there is no point in sending Zeme anymore postcards as they take longer than 4 weeks to get to Ethiopia and then he will be here. So it leaves the surviving 2 of my god-daughters and Lisa. I may even go into withdrawals. So if anyone wants to receive regular postcards let me know, I am a good writer and sender. Goodbye postcard buddies…..
I don’t think I have mentioned too much about the dogs in the camps and in general. Each camp has its own dogs and then strays that make it in without getting caught. Each camp we have been to the dogs seem well looked after, clean coats and well feed, but I am guessing this has to do with the campers feeding them rather than the owners. They are so good and well behaved and you can’t not help but pat them and give them a good scratch. We go and give them all names for the time that we are there so we try and think of crazy names but only get the usual boring Blackie, Sooty, Blondie, Kaleb (he had a tag) etc……. I may have to put a little more creativity into it for the next camps. The dogs remind me of my puppy that I left at home with Drew, ScoobyDoo; I miss that little critter like crazy! He is a real character and pretty smart as well being a mini fox terrier.
There is not much life out here either. We haven’t passed much traffic on the roads and there aren’t many little towns either. It is pretty desolate out here. We have left the mountains and are now driving what looks like plains, no trees and only small shrubby plants as the only vegetation. You wouldn’t want to break down out here that is for sure as I am guessing that help would be a fair way off-somewhere. We pulled into a small town just after 10am and a lot of the service stations were closed, but we found one open that we only had to wait about 10 minutes to get a pump, as we had to fill Rosita as the rest of us stopped for a pee stop and munchies.
We stopped at another service station in the middle of a small town just after1pm, also in the middle of nowhere, but this time for lunch, we didn’t need fuel and thank goodness as the cars were all backed up 20 deep each side of the service station. Seriously, no exaggeration the queue was so long, the cars were all switched off and rolling or restarting when it was time to roll a little further. What is happening today is there something we don’t know about? A fuel shortage? The world is ending? A special discount on fuel for today only? Anyway we only had to use the toilets and eat lunch and then we were back on the road again, so thanks Gray for filling up in the morning. I will never complain about filling up again should I ever get back behind the wheel of a car. I haven’t driven a car since March last year. Is it as easy as riding a bike and you just remember? It will be weird to get home in July and have to drive again, and I’ll be driving Zeme around this time rather than the other way around – now that will be weird!!!
It looks like Facebook is changing its format again and it’s got a name this time ‘Timeline’. I hovered over the ‘try Timeline’ button for about 5 minutes, as I wasn’t sure if I could change it back after I had clicked to the new format, but hell I just couldn’t help it, so I clicked it and I now have the new look. The jury is out as to whether I like it or not. I like the new ‘cover’ picture you can add to the top of your profile, but I am thinking my profile looks rather ‘busy’. But I have been posting and doing a lot of stuff, so I am not sure if it is just because I am actually ‘busy’. I had a small play around with it, but the internet wasn’t super-fast, so I need some more time till I’m won over, but Facebook give you a week to modify the content seen and change your settings before it goes live so all your friends see it. I did take an interesting fact away about my photo section. It now tells you how many photo albums you have. Anyone want to take a guess at how many I have? 793 ALBUMS!!!! Now that would have to nearly be a record right? Surely? So let’s just say I have 150 pictures in an album, some have more some have less, but if we run with 150 per album, I currently have 118,950 photos on Facebook!!!!!!! How hilarious is that! So I am either really loved by Facebook or they really hate me – either way at least I know my photos are safe. 118,950 PHOTOS!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I’ve always said I was a photoholic – now here’s the proof!
The afternoon rolled on into early evening as we drove and drove and drove. It makes an interesting time of day for photos as the clouds start to make some weird patterns in the sky, add that with the massive flat expanse of the plains and a few mountains here and there, I got some great photos as we rolled into Perito Mereno at 7.06pm. A 12 hour day from leaving Bariloche. Perito Mereno was like an oasis in the middle of nowhere, as our camp site was right on a manmade lake, a little surreal actually. So with the tents up just after arriving Kate and I decided to help with dinner, even though it wasn’t our group’s turn, that’s how we roll around here. Kate and I are becoming masters at setting up the tent now, we have our ‘own’ jobs and we literally have that sucker up in 8 minutes, we are that good we have to high five each other each time it goes up and actually we high five each other when it all comes down as well. Kate is the tent roller of the duo and we get it in on the first time all the time now. Oh yeah – we are a good team.
We saw another Tucan truck this evening; they are also in Perito Mereno but staying in a hotel. Their truck is called Peggy and it is the first ‘Tucan’ truck sighting for me. The Quito group saw another truck in Huanchaco just before picking us up in Lima and that truck was called BERNIE!!! I asked if we would be seeing Bernie on our travels or if she would be in Rio where a lot of the trucks converge for Carnival, but the answer was a no, she sticks to the west coast and is ready for the knackery! WHAT……. How awesome would hat have been to get a Bernstar jump with a Tucan truck called Bernie……
A BIG thanks had to go to Gray. After driving 12 hours he then had to get dinner ready for us. I am sure it is the last thing he wants to do and it isn’t just dinner for us but also the Veggies and a Gluten as well. So everything was done and dusted at 8.45pm and it was still so light, so Kate and I chatted for a while outside till 9.30pm, which it was ‘still’ light and said stuff it we’re off to bed. So we read our books for another hour and it had just got dark when we switched off our headlamps just before 11pm.
Tomorrow we have the same again. Another massive travel day with a departure at 7am. The alarm has been set for 5.45am to start it all off for the second day. I remembering writing in my first few days of joining the tour that the hours on the truck were a lot shorter than Africa, well I now have to retract that statement.
Good night from Perito Moreno, somewhere in Argentina. xx
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