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Trip Start May 20, 2010 Previous
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  Rarotonga, Southern Cook Islands, Cook Islands
Friday, December 24, 2010

DOMINIQUE HERE:

Day : 224
Temperature 30 degrees
Weather : Sunny

It's Christmas Eve. I hear that there will be a white Christmas back home...I have to admit I am rather envious, having never had a white Christmas! But then I have to look around at the scenery here, beautiful green mountains shrouded in cloud, white beaches, turquoise water, huge pounding waves crashing on the reef....it's pretty cool.

Yesterday we had the most beautiful sunset. The whole sky turned a caleidoscope of colours, and behind us huge rain clouds turned the most amazing, soft violets and purples. The water was so calm it was like a mirror and the whole scene was absolutely spectacular! This is the place to come for sunsets. We had much entertainment with Fi doing the most stupid things with the camera! Well, why not!?! It was her last night.

Today I woke up to the sounds of Kevin...."La nina bebe leche...", practicing his Spanish on the computer programme that we bought. We really need to get some work done on this before we hit South America. We have decided to do a few days worth of Spanish lessons when we arrive. Essential, I think. So, it looks like we will be somewhere in Chile for New Year. How cool is that?

I thought I would give you all a brief glimpse of our draft itinerary for South America....as I am so excited that I just have to tell someone...so why not you guys out there! The plan will probably change when we are out there many times over, but for now, it goes something like this....

Fly to Auckland and then onwards to BA, changing flights and onwards to Santiago de Chile.
Santiago - maybe Valparaiso for New Year.
Cross the Andes - hopefully having views of Aconcagua - into Argentina.
Travel south to Argentian Lakes and onwards to Patagonia - both Chile and Argentina
Explore Tierra del Fuego and from Ushuaia (if we are miraculously lucky!) catch a fabulous deal to Antarctica where we will have awesome scenery and wildlife encounters.
Work our way up the east coast of Argentina, stopping and the spectacular penguin colonies on the way.
Take a break at Peninsula Piramides just in time to see the Orcas beaching themselves on the shore catching seals!! Can you imagine?!! OK, I know it's a long shot, but if you're not there, you definitely won't see it!
Continue up to BA, then up to north west Argentina from where we will cross over to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, just in time for the spectacular full moon over the Valle de la Luna. We will check out the flamingoes in the Salar, and jump on a tour crossing into Bolivia stopping at the different Lagunas, and the Salar de Uyuni (hopefully which will be covered in water) giving spectacular scenery and optical illusions, great for photographs!
Continue north to La Paz where we will cycle the World's Most Dangerous Road.
Visit Lake Titicaca and Isla del Sol and onwards to Peru.
Stop at the Nazca lines (if we can afford it) and take in this amazing mystery from the air.
Visit Machu Pichu and then travel to Iquitos where we will take a trip into the Amazon rainforest, then backtrack west and cross into Ecuador.
Catch a flight to the Galapagos from Guayaquil where we will spend a couple of weeks and hopefully catch a cruise around the islands, swimming with seals, dive with hammerheads, watch the blue footed boobies and iguanas and tortoises...wildlife fest!
Return exhausted from the Galapagos, just in time to meet up with Fi, continue north on past Cotopaxi Volcano....then....
either continue into Colombia visiting beautiful Cartagena, or, catch a boat down the Amazon. Or both?!
Some how, get to the Pantanal in Brazil just in time for flooding, working our way back down to Iguacu Falls and back into Argentina once again!!!

What a trip!

Well that's it for now. Thankfully we managed to telephone some of our families back home using skype. The internet is so hit or miss here that we thought we'd take the chance whilst we had a connection. So to everyone back home....hope you have a wonderful, white, snowy Christmas and hope that Santa is good to you all. xxxxx

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Silliness!	Flowers on the beach	Very daft!	Flowers on the beach
The beach at sunset	Fi	Sunset	Flowers on the beach
Taking photos of flowers	blurry images of us all	Jump!	Dom taking Kev's photo
Beautiful beach

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