POSH FOR A DAY

When I was in Brazil I heard about an extremely posh hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina that does a wonderful afternoon tea. Being a huge fan of tea and new experiences I decided to go.
Super cool Canadian Janet, who I met in the hostel agreed to accompany me as she also had been harboring dreams of being posh for many years. So we put away our smelly, ripped backpacker clothes for the afternoon and went to the hotel.The hotel is called The Alvear Palace Hotel and was quite near our hostel in Recoleta. Upon arrival we were escorted to the L'Orangerie dining room. I don't think they normally escort customers, but perhaps they thought we were extra posh by the way we were acting, or perhaps they were worried about us stealing cutlery and stuff on the way.The hotel and dining room were very beautiful. We chose to sit in the huge conservatory area, within earshot of the live piano music. The waiters and waitresses were extremely professional and all donned in white gloves, etc.
Of course we pretended to be very posh and unintimidated by our surroundings. I dropped a few hints that my offshore oil business was doing quite well, and the second condo I'm building in the Caribbean is coming along nicely. Janet jabbered on about her poodles and how the colour of our new Ferrari didn't match her lipstick. Like a truly posh man, I ignored most of what she said with 'uh huh, yes dear', etc, whilst concentrating on my fingernails and pretending to wonder when I'd had my last pedicure (or is it manicure? Whatever!).I believe we really had the staff fooled for a while, but when I asked them to take photos, I think that was the giveaway. And then we just started messing around like the commoners we are. It was great fun and Janet is just as mad as me, so we had a great laugh. We even got our waitress laughing when, after putting an artistic swirl of chocolate on Janet's plate, I asked for an 'M' because it's my favourite letter and also the first of my name. Personally I think she done quite a good job, but if I was to be really critical I might point out the left hand side of the 'M' is much thicker than the right hand side. But then again, she hasn't had much practice with M's and I'm an English teacher so these things are more noticeable to me than most people. Waitress; if you are reading this, please don't fret, it was a good first attempt, thank you.Anyway, the food was lovely and tea amazing. Even the tea menu was something extraordinary. Over a three hour period our silver tea pots were constantly replenished with fresh tea leaves and water. Our plates where graced with delightfully presented cucumber and smoked salmon sandwiches, scones, vol-au-vents, cakes and pastries until we were so stuffed we could hardly say "rah rah".Then off we went, back to our smelly clothes, dormitory rooms and instant noodles, but not before generously tipping our waitress and saying "merci beucoup".

LAST SUNRISE

On my last morning in Brazil I got up before sunset and went for a long walk along the beach to reflect on my time in South America. It was a beautiful morning and I was accompanied by the very friendly hotel dog.

SANTA CATARINA - BRAZIL

MY FAVOURITE PHOTO OF THE TRIP

Today was an awesome day.

TEA AND SYMPATHY

A friend just gave me this album by Bernard Fanning (the old singer from Powderfinger) and I´ve been really loving it. First album in a while that has really impressed me.

CRISTO REDENTOR

The Big Jesus. 38m-high, 1145 tons and clearly visible from all over the city.

I visited it the other day with a couple of friends. Set 710m up on a hill, the views were nice.

WOKINI

"Every morning you are handed twenty-four golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn't buy an extra hour. What will you do with your priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted, you cannot get it back."

This is a quote that I really liked in a book I just finished. The book is Wokini, by Billy Mills.

DOWNHILL BIKING - SUCRE

I went on a downhill biking tour just outside Sucre. It was really intense. Probably the most technically difficult riding I’ve done in my short riding career, but really fun. we did four course, all of which were on very, very dry dusty roads, occasionally also used by heavy trucks. There were many jagged rocks littered along the road and we even had to cycle through a river at one point. I felt it was much more difficult and dangerous than Death Road, but it was also more rewarding and a ton of fun. Half of our group of six had accidents. One English lad just about broke his wrist on the first run so was out for the day. Another girl did a full summersault over the handlebars and landed in the dust, which was quite impressive. But the award for most spectacular spill went to me. Like the idiot I am I went off the course to find ‘jumps’. I ended up in a tricky spot and to get back on the course there was a steep drop of about eight feet. Was there looked like enough gradient to cycle down it, so without hesitation (or sense) I dropped down it. But of course it was far too steep and as soon as my front tyre hit the bottom I was catapulted in a spectacular flip over the handlebars and onto my bum. Unfortunately where my bum landed there was a cactus living. It was truly like something from a bad comedy movie and the next scene involved one of the girls very graciously plucking cactus needles from my behind.

SALAR DE UYUNI III

The last day of the tour was nice, but certainly not the highlight. We were up at the shockingly cold hour of 04:30 and spent much of the day driving to cover the great distance back to Uyuni. The early rise was well worth it to see the sun come up and get photos of beautiful mountains reflected on perfectly still lakes.
After several hours bundled up in the 4X4 with our sleeping bags wrapped around us we arrived at some hot springs for a well-needed soak and some breakfast. We also stopped to see some bubbling, sulphur-stinking geysers, but after that it was pretty much directly back to Uyuni with an occasional stop for “pee pee naturale” as our driver politely called it. I got back to town fully satisfied and awesomely impressed with the tour, grabbed my rucksack and jumped on an overnight bus for the next destination.

It drops below twenty degrees at night in the Salar, so we awoke to iced-over windows in our hostel.BUndled up in the 4X4; the girls snooze.Bubbling geysers in the desert.The geysers steaming in the cold morning light.Friends along the way.

SALAR DE UYUNI II

Our second day in the Salar de Uyuni was very different to the first, but just as beautiful. Instead of salt flats we were driving over beautiful desert, with blue skies and a beautiful day time moon watching us the whole time.

A hot breakfast of eggs , toast and coffee somewhat compensated for the bitter-cold six a.m. rise. Then we were off to the vastness. Although seemingly lifeless, there were strange and hearty shrubs growing everwhere we looked, birds occasionally dotting the sky and small, fat, furry mice scampering between the green bits of an otherwise golden brown landscape.

We saw steaming volcanoes and ancient rock formations in the shape of trees before reaching the Red Lake to see some flamingos before they take off for the winter. It was one of those amazing days where I just sat back in our 4X4 gazing out the window in awe of the beauty of our world. And of course there was a lovely sunset to finish the day, and our wonderful cook, Nora, even cracked out a bottle of red wine for with our Spaghetti Bolognese dinner.