3 posts tagged “south america”

• Want to help lift someone out of poverty in a developing country?  It is easy to do right from where you are sitting now.  An organisation called Kiva organises this for you.  You lend a minimum of US$25 to someone in need.  The person you lend to uses that money in a variety of ways from buying stock to fixing up their taxi.  The money is returned to you when the person pays back the loan anywhere from 6 months onward.  I chose 12 women in various parts of the world, mostly South America, and I hope my small contribution helps them better their lives for themselves and their families.  Have a look:  Kiva.org

• Lonely Planet has been slowly rolling out destinations for their Pick & Mix Chapters where you can buy their travel books in pieces for downloading in PDF format.  Tom, Sofia and I are travelling to Poland in a couple of weeks on a budget airline, Wizz Air.  I have a large Eastern Europe book that I could take, but in order to save space/weight I bought two chapters out of the Poland book and will put it on Tom's phone.  I also bought a Polish language guide out of their Eastern European Language guide.  Have a look for yourself:  Pick & Mix

• We have been trying to plan our trip to Chile/Argentina in December/January.  Too many decisions to make.  Chile is such a long, stretched out country that getting anywhere requires loads of driving or some internal flights.  And, travelling with a baby to some of the more remote areas makes me a little nervous.  We have come up with several different options, but really can't decide what to do.  We have about 18 days and for some reason when we are planning it just doesn't seem enough time.  I guess I am not complaining, I just wish it would sort itself out.

• Sofia spent two half-days at nursery this week.  She did better than I thought she would and it gave me some time to get some things done without keeping an eye on her, too.  She came home yesterday with food in her hair because she wouldn't nap in the morning and ended up falling asleep in her highchair at lunch.  She also made her first handprint painting with blue paint and sparkles.  Definitely one to keep!

Tom and I have been collecting Northwest Airlines WorldPerks miles for years with flying and via our Visa (which earns us loads since we use it for everything).  They didn't add up so fast until we moved here.  With loads of trips back and forth to the US and short hops all over on KLM we have amassed over 2 million between us both.  We have also been elite members for years which makes them add up that much faster with bonus miles.

In 2006 we used miles to fly First and Business Class on Malaysian Airlines from the UK to New Zealand via Kuala Lumpur.  At Christmas that same year we used miles to fly Business Class on Air France from the UK via Paris to Santiago, Chile where we visited Chile and Argentina.  That trip made us fall in love with these two countries and we decided we would go back again someday.  In addition to these free trips we have used them for upgrades from economy and a couple of trips for me back to the US to visit family.

We have been itching to take another long trip since we cancelled a second trip to New Zealand when we found out I was pregnant.  I didn't fancy that long-haul travel in my first trimester, especially if I were to have morning sickness.  So, with over a million miles to burn we finally booked ourselves a trip.  We leave the third week in December from the UK to fly to Paris and then onto Santiago on Air France in Business Class, the same flights we did two years before.  This is a 14-hour flight (nothing really to say about this but ugh).  I told Tom I would not be holding a 14 month old child for 14 hours on a plane, so Sofia has her own Business Class seat.  It cost us 140,000 miles each, but well worth it not to have to hold her.  We will spend some time in the north of Chile before transporting ourselves in some way (haven't quite figured out how yet) down to Buenos Aires where we fly home 18 days after we landed in Santigo.

Perito Moreno Glacier

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A 14 hour flight from Paris

We are so excited about our trip.  There is a lot of planning to do and decisions, decisions.  Chile has so much to see in the north.  And, what do we want to see in Argentina?  Fun!!!  Let the planning begin.

I sit here and watch the rain come down this dark afternoon as I do what I can to get adjusted to the time.  I didn't feel that jetlagged when we got in yesterday, but waking up this morning was not an easy task and I have a feeling that tomorrow morning, my first day back at work, won't be an easy one, either.

There is nothing like flying from Manchester, England to Paris on a cold, dark and rainy night on the shortest day of the year to catch a 14-hour flight to Santiago, Chile on the longest day of the year in the Southern Hemisphere.  The sunshine and long days really made us feel like we were getting away.  It was very hard to come back!  Since we were only three hours off of time from home it was rather easy to adjust to the time difference.

Areas we visited:

Santiago, Chile

Viña del Mar and Valparaiso, Chile

Punta Arenas, Chile

Puerto Natales, Chile--Torres del Paine National Park

El Calafate, Argentina--Los Glaciares National Park

New York City, USA

Vancouver, Canada

We had excellent weather most of the time and only one hotel that was so bad we checked out after the first night and went to find somewhere else to stay.  We saw city, countryside, mountains, glaciers, vineyards, beach, coastline, valleys and rivers.  We rode in rental cars, funiculars, a gondola, an ascensore, taxis, trains, many airplanes and did plenty of walking.  We saw guanacos, flamingos, llamas, alpacas, penguins, fox, pigs, ducks, geese, cats, dogs, sheep, cows, Ñandus, horses and Andean condors along with a whole plethora of other birds.  We drove on hundreds of miles of dirt roads in some of the most remote areas we have ever been, ate a variety of new foods and drank some excellent Chilean wine.  We met some of the friendliest people ever--Chileans, Argentineans and travellers along the way.

My only regret is not learning more Spanish before we took this trip.  We never really had any problems, but it would have been so much nicer to have been able to do a little more conversing in Spanish.

More on my holiday later.  I have hundreds of photos to sort through and upload to Flickr...