Brief life interlude ...

Wow! Where has time gone? It's stopped being lamp posts flicking past and become a bloody picket fence flashing past!

We've been travelling. ('Oh, what?' I hear you say. 'Never!')

OK, sarc aside, we did a 38-day cruise Sydney to South America, down the west coast, around Cape Horn, and up to Buenos Aires. It was 38 days that we'd do again in an instant.

Firstly, the weather was sensational. We had one very short (48 hours) period of intense rain. Sadly, it meant that Papeete was closed, as the Governor  had declared a state of emergency due to localised flooding. We sat at the dock in the harbour, and could see the locals waiting for us to spend some money, but we just weren't allowed ashore. There were any number of volunteers willing to go ashore and help, but the Governor politely declined. The last thing they wanted was a thousand or so ill-informed tourists running here, there and everywhere. Fair enough.

The moai of Easter Island are truly unforgettable, but ... the island is a tourist trap of sorts. It's a national park and if you want to see in person all those magnificent moai you see on TV, it's going to cost you hundreds of USD to gain entry. My hint: Find a local bar/cafe and try a couple of pisco sours. Be warned though: they pack a mean wallop! Dearly Beloved made it back to our cabin after two ... and promptly crashed on the bed for three hours!

Valparaiso was definitely NOT my favourite. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, grotty and worn. There is graffiti everywhere and many of the buildings are derelict and/or abandoned. We took a funicular up the hill over the town and went looking for a way to get to the next one to go down. A local whistled us up and shook his head vigorously. 'No!' he said. 'Go down! Not safe!' He drew a finger across his throat for emphasis. OK, we can take a hint. We returned to the same funicular and breathed deeply as we headed down ...

The glaciers in the south are, simply, magnificent. They rival anything Alaska has to offer. The only descriptor I can think of to do the area justice is 'other-worldly'. Beautiful.

We were so lucky with the weather we got go around the actual cape, and not through the passage as most are forced to do. We had been warned of shrieking winds and 12-metre swells. Instead, we found cold but clear skies and, at the most, 3-metre swells. We stood on deck in awe, realising we were seeing what is denied to so many.

In Ushaia we noticed the sign on the dock banning British-registered ships from entry. According to them, they are STILL at war. And you do NOT speak of the Falklans; the name is Las Malvinas! We did a 4WD adventure tour which took us through some amazing offroad country. And I was completely astounded to find that beaver — an introduced animal — are a pest somewhat akin to our rabbits!

We steamed into Stanley (the Falklands, not Las Malvinas this time!). We were seated with a man who had been a pilot during the war there. He pointed out different areas as we sailed in. 'See that hill there? The Argies were dug in at the summit, so the British ship pounded the hell out of it with the deck guns. None of the Argies really wanted to be there, so when it got too bad they took off at a run down the hill. And the Ghurkas were waiting at the bottom of the hill —

The Falklands are British to their very core, even down to the red phone boxes and letterboxes dotting the town — and a rather nice monument to Margaret Thatcher overlooking the ocean. But if you visit and hanker to eat a 'real' Pommy meal of fish and chips in a pub -- forget it; it's hideously expensive and, at best, mediocre.

We were both pleasantly surprised to fall in love with Buenos Aires. Overall impression? Green. Wide avenues. Beautiful, beautiful women (sorry Darling). The river is unbelievable, and the canals (natural, not manmade) rival anything Venice has to offer. There are some 20 000 islands, the majority inhabited. Everything goes to them by boat: food, gas, rubbish collection ... even the doctor. Mind-blowing stuff.

Reality struck when we had to fly home. The best we could could do was Air New Zealand -- at a one-way price BA --> Auckland --> Perth more than a return flight! We also 'bid' to upgrade both legs of our flight to premium economy, for which we were successful, but which added another $1200 EACH to our flights. When we got home, we both acknowledged that it was worth every cent.

That's about enough for now.

There's another cruise/holiday to report on (east coast USA and St Lawrence Seaway), a couple of weeks in Bali, and ... the bloody renovations are happening! The latter are getting under both our skins big time — but that's a symptom of age, I believe, rather than problems with the renovators.

Anyway — next time.