HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: No fisti-cuffs over the seats
BUMMER OF THE DAY: No fisti-cuffs over the seats
WORD OF THE DAY: Hot seat
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 789KM
The Tour leaves Santiago this morning and the ‘newbies’ are introduced to our yellow monster home ‘Rosita’ for the next 42 days. When do the newbies stop becoming newbies? After a week? Never? When we get new newbies in Rio? I can’t really use the term for Sven and Kate2, as they have already done 11 weeks on Rosita last year and have rejoined the tour after a hiatus in Ecuador and surrounds. But they are still newbies to us, so I will still lump then in for now. Newbies.
I have been trying to update my PayPal account the last few days, as all my details are all wrong, email address was work, postal address was work and now Drew’s home, expired credit cards etc…… It has all come about as I have found an English-Amharic dictionary I can buy online and pay via PayPal. But once you start changing things due to security, emails are sent, re clicking required, resetting of passwords, security questions etc….and the security game begins. I know it is all for my own good, but now I am at a stale mate that it won’t let me change one thing and my account has limited access till it can be fixed. It is driving me nuts and I got up early to go to level 2 to login and see if I can get it rectified so I can get this bloody dictionary to no luck. So I have lodged a help to the resolution center and now need to wait 4 days for a reply. Lucky I’m in no rush!!
Kate and I were all packed, breakfasted and teeth cleaned early and after looking out the window we could see Rosita parked out the front of the hotel, so we figured we may as well go down and get sorted on the truck. I like getting there first anyway on ‘normal’ days, but I just know Mark would think we were trying to hog and grab our seats first, just without all the elbows and shoves as we were first and Kate has a key! Oh yeah baby she holds all the power, if we wanted to play that card that is. But as it worked out we weren’t the first to arrive, Paul was already on the truck, and the other keeper of the key has its advantages. So we climbed on and I got to pack my 4 bags, snack bag and 2 bottles of wine away without the pressure of people around. Mar was next out and he didn’t look impressed that we were already on the truck, we had a bit of a laugh and cackle to which we got no response, but if he bothered to talk to us he would know I was making room for Helen’s things up above as to avoid any awkwardness we had tee’d up to be seat buddies for the next 6 weeks. I am the only one out of the original crew that is sharing my seat, so some brownie points have to be given for sure Mr. Huffy.
As people came out of the hotel, oldies took their original seats except Mick, who has done a suck job and moved 2 seats to be sitting behind H and I and Sharon has moved a seat forward to be sitting at a table seat for the duration of this section. So I am not the only one that has taken one for the team. Paul and Lizzie have also merged into one seat, so between the 4 of us we have kept harmony on the truck and it was easy then to show the newbies which seats were vacant and which were taken. So all the newbies also have their own seats, so this should keep Mark happy hopefully, except for the couples, but it makes sense for them to share I think. Just like I will on the next section with Zeme (small sacrifice trust me) and we will have more people as well, but it will be no skin off my nose.
With Mick moving I had to reshuffle my gear down a seat to make room for Sven and Kate2’s stuff, which was no big deal, only because Mick has hardly any stuff to go up top, and I have 3 days in Pucon to sort out all my crap and make room for other peoples stuff. Mark told us the other day that once we arrive into Rio, EVERYTHING has to come off the truck, so that will be super interesting trying to get my 5 billion bags and crap off. I remember taking all my gear off the Intrepid truck in Africa after 8 weeks, yeah it wasn’t pretty! Oh well, if that’s the worst thing to happen, I’m going to be quite and just suck it up.
So with everyone on board, all bags on, people in seats and they all look happy we left Santiago just after 8am. High Five crew. Our second section of our adventure begins right NOW. New blood in the group I think is exactly what we needed and I have a good feeling about this section of the trip. It also helps knowing I am out of a tent 6 nights earlier than the others and I will be super glad when I get that damn Brazil visa. I am glad I spoke to Kirrily about the Brazil visa, as she told me you have to make an appointment in BA to see the Consulate there. Thank goodness she told me, as it would have been terrible to pay for flights and extra accommodation to get to BA to not be able to get an appointment! So I jumped online last night and got a slot, but it came up with an error message, but blocked off the slot anyway. I’ll leave it a few days and see if I get my confirmation email, otherwise I will just book another slot.
I am happy to report I have used the first 5 hours of travelling this morning to catch up on the last 3 days blog entries and I am now so up to date I am writing this in ‘real’ time!!! I haven’t been this up to date since my Antarctic cruise in early November and it feels AMAZING!!!!!! I am UP TO DATE on my blog and also my photos on Facebook. Have I mentioned it feels AMAZING!!! These are Happy Days – HD people!!! So I have a new seat buddy I have neglected a little down the back, but I am sure she isn’t too concerned that she has had the seats to herself all morning. I am starting to think that maybe I will just keep this table seat as my new seat for the trip. It is handy to the charger, it has a table, I am on ‘my side’ of the truck, there is a window, but I can’t stick my head out of it, but maybe this is the sacrifice that I need to make? I’ll speak to Kate1 and H and see what they think.
We stopped for lunch at 2pm at some waterfalls that were on a mini scale of Niagara Falls if I was to paint a picture for you. Sometimes people use the word waterfalls and it is just a trickle down the side of a rock. But these were actually quite nice falls and they were busy with ‘local’ tourists. Some even getting their kit off to have a splash in some of the pools. We had to walk past a stack of shops and market stalls to get to them, it was a popular tourist stop going by the amount of people around, but looking at the stuff it is everything we have seen before and some in Bolivia and Peru. So I did get a bit of a reputation as a shopper for the first few weeks and burned some cash, but now I have settled back down again and I AM thankful that this is the case and I have been able to save some money off my daily budget again. Phew……… I’m not sure if we are trying to impress the newbies but we have some new condiments on the table today. Salad dressing!!! Woah I hear you say. Talk about a lash out! I am really happy about it though, as I am a little over the having a sandwich for lunch for the last 5 weeks gal. But I am happy to use the salad as, salad, so have the dressing in awesome news for me, considering another 5 weeks of salad sandwiches may have just tipped me over the edge. We do get ham, tuna, guacamole etc. with the salads, so I don’t want to make it sound like it is boring and exactly the same each day, but the base is …salad…….
Today is a big travel, a nice welcome to the newbies and the truck. We had already travelled for 6 hours and we still now had another 300km to go to get to Pucon. So what do I do on the truck all day? I like to watch the world go by; waving at people when we come into towns and all the time I am listening to my music. Ask any previous seat buddies, I have been known to be a little anti-social at times as I am always plugged into my IPod when we are on the move. I LOVE listening to music when we are on the go and at the moment I have a playlist I have been listening to that only has 26 songs ‘my current favorites’ and I listened to the same 26 songs on shuffle ALL day today. The whole 8 hours we were on the truck. It’s not the first time I have just listened to this playlist all day; I wonder how long it will take me to get sick of them. I had another playlist that had 86 songs in it and I just listened to that for 3 months while in Africa. Out of a possible song selection of 2897 songs it seems a little crazy to just listen to 26 songs, but I like them so I’ll keep playing the playlist till I get sick of it. Interested in knowing what the 26 songs are:
Crossfire – Brandon Flowers
Memories-David Guetta
I’m Coming Home-Diddy
I Like How It Feels-Enrique Iglesias
Heartbeat-Nicole Scherzinger
French Cancan-
Solo-IYAZ
Human-The Killers
Dinosaur-Kisschasey
Born This Way-Lady Gaga
Party Rock Anthem-LMFAO
Dance-Lumidee vs Fatman
Moves Like Jagger-Maroon 5
Come What May-Matt Joe Gow and the Dead Leaves
At the Bar-Matt Joe Gow and the Dead Leaves
If This Is It-Newton Faulkner
To Her Door-Paul Kelly
Don’t Give Up-Shannon Noll and Natalie Bassingthwaite
Mine-Taylor Swift
Ill Nous-Elisa Tovati and Tom Dice
Somewhere in the World – Australian Idol winner
Believe Again – Enrique Iglesias
Islands in the Stream – Ronan Keating Duets
Love is An Animal – Wes Carr
You and Me - Milow
We had one more servo stop in amongst the 300km at a place called Pronto, which I am not sure if they can use that as they were a little on the slow service side, but the upside of waiting was Gray pointed out a stuffed monkey asking if the truck needed a cab monkey? So on a whim Paul, Liz and I went thirds in the stuffed money and realized that the monkey actually looks like Mark, so we have called him Mini Mark and we are now keeping an eye out for something for Gray to go into the cab so it will be nice and cozy with the 4 of them upfront. Mini Mark looks great up front. The toilet stops haven’t taken too much longer with the additional people, but we are pretty much using ‘luxury’ bathrooms compared to what we had on the first section and there are more of them, so the turn-around isn’t much longer than before.
As we have had people leave and people join our cleaning crews have been changed as well. Julia and I are still in Team B (Team Bandito) but we have a new crew including Mike and Elisabeth. Debbie has been disbanded from the group and is now part of Team C…..sucker……. Oh um I mean you will be missed……
We are passing a lot hay fields, gum trees and timber yards this afternoon. Looking out the windows you could be somewhere in Australia, as we head further south we are leaving what I would term local experiences where the people are poorer, rely more on the land and are more traditional to entering Chile and Argentina they are more westernized, seemed more cashed up and feels more like home. I think we have done the most challenging countries first, till we get to northern Brazil I am guessing and then get back into tribes in the Amazon and feeling more less westernized.
We finally arrived into Pucon at 6.40pm. We were taken straight to the Adventure Centre for people to look and get an idea on what there is to do for the next 2 days. We have 2 whole days here and it seems like an adventure type of place with volcanos, national parks and a lake and I was right. There is loads of stuff, there are mountain hikes, kayaking, zip lining, volcano walks, hydro speeding, canyoning, sky diving, horse riding, paragliding, hot springs, mountain biking, motor cross, quad biking and an area tour. I have done a lot of that stuff before, so I am thinking of just doing the area tour and the hot springs. Most of the group has booked on the Hydro speeding. Which is basically an oversized kickboard about a meter long; with flippers and you ride the rapids downstream. I am not a water baby at the best of times, so I have passed and I am glad I am passed the group pressure thing of being the only person not going, but Lizzie is also not doing it. The Adventure guide was good as he told us the weather forecast for the next 2 days is rain, heavy rain tomorrow after 2pm and then light rain all day, the day after. So the weather is not in our favor here as a lot of the activities are weather dependent and he wasn’t even going to take bookings for 80% of the activities based on that.
So with people booked on prospective tours we got back into the truck for the 5 minute drive to the camp site. The weather really looked like it was starting to close in and with the weather prediction for the next 2 days on the rainy side, we paid extra attention to the tent set up, making sure that the pegs were taut and that the outside fly/canopy wasn’t touching the inside tent. At least we know that our tent can hold up with torrential rain as it had been tried and tested in Salta with near flood proportions. Not sure about the newbie tents so let’s hope they all get good ones.
By the time we got camp set up, the kitchen set up with a food tent, weather precaution, and the cooks all chopping it was 9pm. It was going to be a late dinner tonight. The camp site has picnic tables so we had 3 bought over to accommodate the ‘new family’ for tucker time. Well Mick and I were one of the last to fill our plates, so we sat at the only table that was left and we both sat on the same side and you know what happened next, the table flipped on its side with both Mick and I falling backwards with the table and our plates with rice, deviled sausages and cabbage sliding off our plates and onto us, all over us. I am sure it must have looked a funny sight with Mick and I on the ground, the table in the air and food everywhere. We got saved and I had to do a commando roll to get off the seat and stand up. Stupid one sided picnic table!!! Luckily there was enough food left, just, to give us another plate and take 2 I sat at a table that had bums on both sides of the table. Now I have to wash the skirt as I had made a right old mess with sauce and rice all stuck to it……..
The rain held off tonight and after the Bandito clean-up and wash, it was time to hand wash the skirt and head to bed. It had been a long day and I was tired.
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