New Zealand, the kiwi trip

Hello guys, now I'm writing from Hong Kong but I have so much to write that I will start with what came after the Cook Islands, New Zealand.
We didn't have time to see all New Zealand, but we saw the north of the south Island and Auckland, so that is what I will write about.
New Zealand is an island where you can find landscapes from many parts of the world together, and it's green, large and empty. Ohh yee and the people is veery funny.
We started in Christchurch, in the middle of the south island, east coast, a very british and calm city, and crossed to the west coast. A tranzalpine train crosses the mountains (called Southern Alps, the Lord of the Ring was filmed somewhere around there) and then the landscape changes from big mountains, with lakes, to fields covered with yellow flowers. When we went high it remembered me Norway, when the mountains appeared huge and green it looked like Argentina around Bariloche, and seriously these are some of the most beautiful sceneries I've ever seen.
After the train we continued with another scenic roadtrip, this consisted in the tough Pacific Ocean breaking on a coast of big mountains, reminding of the Californian Big Sur but this time covered with a tropical green vegetation. We ended up in a town of two roads that crossed each other, three restaurants and one of the best backpackers hostels we have seen in New Zealand, called "The Lazy Cow".  This hostel was small and owned by a really friendly woman who presented us to all the other guest and made a delicious lasagne (and this is something you don't usually get as a backpacker). The name of the town was Murchison and the reason to get there was to do rafting in one of the clear esmerald rivers, broken down by some earthquakes. It was however a calm rafting but we enjoyed the views and even swimming in its Spring icy water.
After lovely Murchison we went further north to the Abel Tasman national park. Our plan was to walk around the paths of this park of small mountains covered by tropical greens and surrounded by another amazing tone of turqoise from the Tasman sea. I would like to describe the colour of this sea but I'm not sure I can (so you can google for pictures). As we walked from the beaches to the mountains and saw the water from higher above, the tones changed so that I'll just say that it was worth every pain in the muscles that we had the days after.
We continued with long journeys in buses, some with interesting people, like an old woman that prefered to travel by herself and when younger had been going around half world, being her the only woman. You could see the look of adventure still burning in her eyes. The best about travelling, she said, was the people you meet. And I think she was right.
We saw the Malborough hills covered by vineyards, this is where the flowery Sauvignon Blanc wine from New Zealand is produced. This time we sleeped in a hostel with some kids (on their twenties) that worked in the vineyards, some of them from East Europe.
The last stop of the North Island was Kaikoura. This town offers one of the most impresive landscapes you can find in the North Island and probably in the world, with its almost 3000 meters high mountains by the sea level. Some of them had snow. In the ocean, not far from the coast there is a rift that makes another similar drop into the bottom of the ocean. This is the reason why there is a lot of marine life and even whales! And we SAW whales! Yes we took a short flight in a small aeroplane and we saw the amazing landscape from the air and then we entered the ocean and after a while we saw from the air this huge mammal (sperm whale, 15 meters long) throwing a fountain of water, and finally getting down and showing elegantly its tale.
Finally, we left the South Island without having seing anything, as an old couple going to the airport pointed out to us (they meant the south of the South Island). And we saw less of the North Island, just Auckland. The most populated city of New Zealand, the city of the forty volcanoes. And to not bore you I'll just say that if you go to Auckland, sleep in the coolest street, Ponsonby, try the tiramisu of SPQR, see the national museum, make excursions to the surrounding islands, the volcanoes and see the city from Mount Eden (another volcano, of course).

Big Sur and the Cook Islands

Suppose we are in an island in the middle of the Pacific where all the phone and internet connections may be done by satellite… that could explain why we haven’t given any sign lately. But you know, we are alright, people here call these islands Paradise and I can’t think about any argument against it. Yes, I’m talking about the Cook Islands. But let’s get a bit back on time. I think I left you in San Francisco, such a beautiful city, but then we saw the Big Sur, this is, we drove in highway one, a highway by the sea that connects San Francisco and Los Angeles. We made it in four days, stopping at every point for the views. First, a coast broken by not so pacific waves, fuggy little towns, ghost trees, and then the spectacular mountains by the sea, the road zigzags between green mountains and from these heights the ocean looks infinite. We stopped in some national parks and saw the biggest trees, the redwoods and cascades over the sand in inaccessible beaches. And we passed Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Simeon, where we saw zebras by the road, Santa Barbara, Ventura and finally Los Angeles. L.A. was as much fun as San Francisco was beautiful. I never drove in a city of ten million inhabitants, but it’s not hard, you just have cars around you all the time and if you get traffic you can spend more than one hour in crossing dozens of streets not covering even one tenth of the city. I mean, that’s just amazing. Then we went to the beaches of Santa Monica, nice, and Venice, interesting, where we saw the sunset while watching a spontaneous drum playing, with old hippies and others dancing. And our hostel offered to us spaghettis for five dollars and going out to see the real Saturday night, which was a good one (except for that we were just in our backpacker clothes and this was a superfancy Beverly Hills club, but who cares).
The step after California where the Cook Islands, Rarotonga and Aitutaki. We arrived with all the backpacks and walked under the first rain of the hurricane season until we got soaked (because they told us it was five minutes to town and they of course meant it by motorbike) but after this, everything was alright. One thinks Rarotonga, with the deep green jungle and the beaches is perfect until one sees Aitutaki, the island of the big lagoon, which is one of this places that makes you loose the capability of surprise. Then it’s just transparent waters with white sand and as soon as you start to swim you enter small worlds of corals with colorful fishes of all sizes. Here they make the Survivors series and express weddings, and I wouldn’t care doing any of them (but seriously I didn’t). So we just swam, read, ate fish marinated in coconut, pawpaw, learned to open the coconuts… Now we are in Rarotonga again and we crossed the island with a quite funny buddist guide, nearly 70, 15 sons, that showed us the properties of Belladona and other plants, and the island, just as green as a tropical island gets. The perfect islands, a pity that they are just in the other end of the world.

Carta desde Santa Barbara

Os escribo desde Santa Barbara, ya llevamos un par de dias conduciendo un Ford focus por la costa de California, por unas montanias verdes al lado del mar, preciosas. Tambien hemos visto redwoods, los arboles mas grandes del planeta, que dejan sin aliento, sintiendote como una hormiguita, y luego una cascada cayendo sobre la playa. Pero lo mas curioso ha sido ver una horda de cebras al lado de la carretera. Y por supuesto no es que bebamos mucho vino sino que se las trajo el multimillionario Hearst (quien inspiro la peli Ciudadano Kane) el siglo pasado. Ayer visitamos su castillo en lo alto de la montania y vimos esta ciudad en compania de una entraniable medio abuela mia rusa. Santa Barbara tiene mar, montania y unos bonitos edificios de la epoca de los espanioles. Pero he empezado por el final, antes de esto hemos pasado por un Halloween de sustos en Londres (dejo abierto el misterio), volado encima de montanias blancas, Groenlandia y Canada, y caminado arriba y abajo las cuestas de San Francisco. Y no puedo dejaros sin contar que SF es una ciudad extraordinaria, con casitas victorianas en las cuestas que suben los tranvias, gente abierta que se para a hablar contigo y le dice a su perro que hoy no muerda turistas, restaurantes de todo el mundo ( en el viaje hemos probado coreano, vietnamita e indio) y por supuesto el puente, desde la playa y con la luna llena detras. Os contaria mas pero con este aparatito tardo una vida en escribir y a pesar del jet lag, que es poco, ya toca levantarse. Y ahora, proximo destino, Los Angeles.

From London to San Francisco

I was going to upload a great picture of Greenland from the plane but
I can't from the Iphone (anybody knows how??). Anyway, after our
departure,in London they received us in the passport control with a
"that's lovely" and we had dinner in a Korean restaurant. Then we went
to an English pub full of witches and pirates. And we flew 10 hours
over ice, Greenland and Canada and arrived to the most beautiful city
I've seen in the US, San Francisco

Night before leaving

Yess, now is really getting close, it's getting exciting, I don't really have time to write, but... yes I'll tell you that we have already packed the essential things, this is, toothbrush, swimming suit, visas and medicine. Then is also recommended to take some more clothes, camera, antimosquitos... and we are working on this.
Thinking that, after all, we'll miss home (which is now finally Uppsala), and our friends (ok, maybe not when we are in the islands but some other times :P) and that today with the sun and the yellow leaves the cathedral looked beautiful.
About how it feels before such a big trip, I don't know, I guess my mind is blank like a memory card ready to be filled (yes, the technocracy) , and after all the preparations, teaching four hours in a row and the effects of the vaccines I am a bit tired, but J is dancing San Francisco we're going don't you know we may never ever wanna turn back :D I am also that excited but in the inside!
We'll keep you updated, I know that a lot of you ask for this blog and wanted to follow us, so it's a pleasure to write it! For the ones that are worried, don't because we even got the Chinese and South East Asia short phrases dictionaries, we may eventually learn something. And, of course, write us back!

So, finally, here is where the trip starts...

Las fechas

Aquí van las fechas para que nos podáis seguir:
- 31 Octubre salimos para Londres
-1 de Noviembre para San Francisco, a recorrer la highway 1 hasta Los Angeles!
- El 8 vamos a las islas del Pacífico: Rarotonga, lalala
- El 16 salimos hacia una isla de película, Nueva Zelanda, perdemos un día de golpe, impresionante pero el 16 de Noviembre desaparece mágicamente de nuestras vidas. Quizás no tan mágicamente ya que llevaremos a esas alturas unos cuantos días de más de 24 horas, es decir durmiendo demasiado (Johannes apunta que esto le parece una buena idea).
-Y el 24 volamos de Christchurch a Auckland
- 27 Noviembre Si nos queda algo de dinero seguimos a la aventura real, China, Shanghai (lo que lo hace más aventura es que no vamos a entender nada hablado ni escrito)
-Viajamos por tierra (tren) (si encontramos el tren) de Shanghai a Hong Kong y seguimos hacia el oeste, Guilin, Kumming, Yunnan... y cruzamos a Laos y Vietnam
-Bueno tengo que mencionar que el punto anterior nos va a llevar un tiempecillo asi que salimos del sur de Vietnam a Singapore el 14 de Enero!
-17 de Enero vamos a India, 30 a Londres y 31 estamos de vuelta en Uppsala
Si, bueno, os preguntaréis que dónde estamos en Navidades y cuando Johannes cumple los 30?? Pues hemos calculado que el 20 de Diciembre estaremos en ... yo diría que en el suroeste de China, y el 25 de Diciembre en Laos, y en año nuevo, en Laos o Vietnam, y si estamos en Laos probablemente les de igual ya que su nuevo año es el 14 de Abril, pero por lo menos en Vietnam sí que parece que lo celebran. De todas formas, en los dos países hay 6 horas de diferencia (en invierno) con España o Suecia, por lo cual llegaremos al 2010 a las 7 de la tarde vuestras!
Cuenta atrás, ya nos quedan sólo 19 días!!

The RTW

View Mi RTW 3 in a larger map
Yes, here comes my map!! After the three shots of vaccines and trying to get my blood back to my head I can say I'm almost ready to go. I've been spending my time recording the trip in Google Earth, but that one I cannot link to this web... try it yourself, I've been (virtually) flying over the Lord of the Rings mountains in New Zealand and between buildings in Singapore and my next goal is to fly under the water (swim I guess). The point is that as some travelers say, the trips should be enjoyed at least three times, planning, going and remembering it.
We've been looking that we are not only going around east-west but also quite north and south (of course we may regret this in the plane but for now looks cool). So you have to read the map starting from the right because we are going towards the west, and the only way I could represent it starting from the left would be putting the Earth upside down (which is good for me because I come from Argentina but I cannot do it in Google Maps, only in Google Earth!). Sorry for the long phrases but it is because I have a Spanish natural prose and I just can't stop the writing!
Otherwise preparatives are running smoothly, just worried about some medicine we are going to take that causes depression and nightmares (and we were running away of the dark winter because of that!). Then thinking in booking some places to stay, taking into account three parameters: location (preferably no more than 100 kms from where we want to go), within the budget and that you don't get your backpack stolen (being the probability of this last parameter directly proportional to the distance to the hostel and inversely proportional to the budget). Learning Chinese will have to wait... can't be so hard, the small symbols, the 80,000 of them, but you can get around with a few thousands if you also learn how to pronounce them.