Visiting my patagónicos friends

After neglecting for long time this blog, I'll try to keep it updated again. The reason for this blog started in NZ and now it continues in Argentina. So, it doesn't matter where God lead my way, all the coming posts will belong to the same "Jaro in NZ" adventure.

After some weeks in Buenos Aires decided to visit some dear friends in the far south, the Patagonia Land.

The trip going down south takes about 24 hours by bus. It's 2000 km ish until you get Esquel in the province of Chubut.

Here some pics taken from the bus, before the sun sets... possibly this scenary belongs to La Pampa province.



The town of destination was Trevelin, which means in Welsh: Tre: town and Velin: Mill. And yes, it's a Welsh settlement in the past, nowadays it's the second Welsh settlement after Gayman.

Here's an interesting pic from the museum:




My friends and their lovely children. It was great to catch up with them!



There are beautiful places near Trevelin. The following is in the Parque Nacional Los Alerces. Going to Lago Futalaufquen.



Closer to Trevelin there's a small area of falls. On the way we found different kind of birds, it was fun to spot them. Cascadas Nant y Fall.



After Trevelin, on the way back to Buenos Aires I did a stop for some days at Plottier to visit my other friends. The trip from Esquel to Neuquen was awesome, the scenery in the Patagonia it's really immense. Here some pics.



In Plottier the weather was quite warm, like Spring days, though. Here some pics when we spent the afternoon, before the sun sets, in the Limay river shore. It was a beautiful time with them too!



Ah, we visited the El Chocón dam. A very interesting place to visit. It generates a huge portion of electric power for our country. In the same area there's a interesting paleontological museum to visit. It seems that dinosaurs were populating this vast area. The biggest carnivorous in the world was discovered in this area.



Ok, this for now, until the next post from this Latin American land.

Easter on Ngauruhoe

Hi guys

Here some pics from the Easter tramping, awesome scenary, great people, that's life!



Hope you like them!



....It's so difficult to spell and pronounce Ngauruhoe :-)

Tarde en el Sembrador

Last Sunday before coming back to NZ


We spent the afternoon chilling out in the swimming pool, drinking mate and eating of course!

Some photos here

Waiting for the 7th

After year and a half, the Vocales group is almost reunited again... we are just waiting for the seventh member coming from the northern emisphere.

Getting Buenos Aires

It was a trip 16 hours longer than expected. Starting in Welli, the departure at 11:30 am was great, at the airport were Hannah, Brett and Peter saying chau.

Once in Auckland, received a call from the airline saying my flight from 5:30pm to Santiago is delayed until 3:00 am... sorry, blah, blah.. :-( Nothing to do about it. So, went to the pre-arranged hotel nearby the airport. At the hotel, like me there were many other latinos coming from other NZ cities and Australia waiting for the same flight. Many Brazilians which means a carioca atmosphere animated with conversations in Portugués.

At 3:30am Tuesday, we were leaving New Zealand. The flight was ok, I could sleep well, thanks to the jet lag pills though. So watched just one movie and had short conversations with my neighbours.

We get Santiago at 10:30 pm Monday which means we lost the last flight of the day to BA. Well, at least we crossed the ocean safely.

Got my luggage and surprise: the padlock was broken and lost that could mean that my suitcase was open on the way.... not good. Did it a claim and found that there were other people making claims as well for the same issue.

It was 1:00 am Tuesday and we were still at the airport waiting for being transported to a hotel. We took the bus to the hotel and went to the closest one, for our surprise there were no enough rooms in there! Plan B was to accomodate us in another one but in a far way location somewhere in Santiago. Probably was 1 hour bussing, not sure, I was so tired.

We got finally the place we were going to, did the 2 calls I needed and had a short sleep time.

By 8:00 am at last we were leaving Santiago, crossed the glorious Andes mountains and landed in Buenos Aires on time! 9:30 am.

My mum was waiting for me, thanks mum for being there!

And finally a funny thing happened when we arrived home. Look at this pic



The clock on the wall was indicating almost the same time as my watch having the NZ time. I asked my mum: do you have the clock with the NZ time? and she said no.... that clock doesn't work from long ago..... :-) misterious thing though...

Tired of reading, me too... thanks anyway for your getting here :-) I will try later to post more about my visit to BA.

Castlepoint

Por Labour Day que aquí es como el día del trabajador, nos tomamos el fin de semana largo.

Con un grupete de amigos entre ellos 2 argentinos mas, fuimos para Castlepoint. Un pueblito al noreste de la isla norte. 3 horas y media manejando, mas o menos, desde Wellington.

Un lugar de muucho viento, demasiado diría yo, pero que cuando se calma es un pequeño paraíso.

Aquí una vista del faro, parte del paisaje madrugador de las 6am. ¿Qué hacía yo tan temprano levantado? No lo recuerdo.




Ah, si quieren ver fotos en serio vayan a este link, que son fotos de Roger, un talentoso, parte del grupo de amigos de ese fin de semana.

los cantores de la playa

Bueno, hace mucho que no ando publicando nada de lo que esta sucediendo por esta isla. No es vagancia. Hay un grupo de amigos con la que estamos compartiendo momentos como este.


Musicales nosotros, sin mas audiencia que el quieto mar y algún que otro transeúnte, iluminamos la noche con nuestras voces.... bueh,... ¿No será mucho? No sé, pero de divertirnos seguro. A ver cuando me hago otro ratito para publicar algo...