Updates
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Subject: Make yourselves comfortable! It's a big'un!
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 07:16:19 +0000
Hola a todos,
Que tal estan?
I don't normally do emails this close to each other but so much has happened in the last week that it makes for a much needed update. I left my Queenstown life with both sadness and excitement. I couldn't believe the 3 months were already over but at the same time I couldn't believe I was going to be in Mexico within the next 7 days! So I picked up my rucksack with half dread and half enthusiasm. Still, the next few days were going to help me get back into the travelling swing of things:
My first stop was Wanaka where I spent a hungover/chilled out day with a visit to the eclectic Cinema Paradiso as highlight. The next day I took a bus to Fox Glacier that is situated about half way up the west coast of New Zealand. There I had a bit of a panic finding accommodation (well I am out of practise!) but landed the last room at the local Motor Holiday Camp!
I was definitely back in travellers land. The kitchen of this place was like little Tel Aviv! I guess it was my chance to practice my limited Hebrew I learnt with the guys in China!:) People keep thinking I am Israeli and they get even more confused when I tell them - in Hebrew - that I am half French half Spanish. Hehe :))
Anyway the next day I did this guided tour on the glacier. Almost straight away I bumped into these 2 guys, Raph and Yohanes who suspiciously looked familiar to me and vice versa. Turned out we'd met in the ecafe in Queenstown, seen each other wondering the streets of Wanaka and now recognised each other in Fox! During the walk we also met this Swedish guy called Freddy and also Martin, an unusual English character who was a forensic mental nurse! We kinda teamed up, and not only did we have a cold and great day on the glacier but we also enjoyed an evening in the local saloon, eating burgers, drinking beer and playing pool! After a few beers, Martin turned a bit weird on us by incessantly break dancing and moon walking by the pool table waiting for his turn! :)) But then we thought he probably needed to let his hair down! By 3 am we were pretty merry and an unscheduled and trespassing stop to the local glow-worm park seemed to be the best thing we'd even seen and done! Then it was unwanted goodbyes all round!
The following day I dragged myself to the bus stop and started my trip towards Nelson. The amount of stops these buses do are ridiculous! I think we must have been stopping 20mins every hour, on the hour! As fate has it, it worked in my favour! We got given half an hour to check out the pancake rocks in Hokitika. There, who do I bump into? The jolly group of yesterday without Michael-Martin-Jackson though! Within seconds my bag came straight out of the coach and straight into their already overloaded boot! We were all off to Nelson and what a great drive it was!
The hostel we stayed in was a bit surreal. One: it was super loud Karaoke night, two: it was unusually full of locals, three I had my first Maori 'Kiora' greeting at 4 in the morning from this huge scary looking bloke who
by the sounds of it had been put on this earth to look after me!... 'Cos Darling,' he said, 'you get any hassle, I'm in room 14, you come and get me!'... That's about the time, I knew I needed to get myself into that smelly dorm and get some sleep!
The next morning we had our second take at goodbyes and unfortunately this time it was for real! Nelson is pretty small and quiet. Er ... ok, I was pretty knackered and saw very little of it!
(Sorry guys this is a long email! Cup a tea anyone?)
The following day I left before sunrise and started my flying marathon! This first one was to Auckland where I got a chance to check out the beautiful boats due to take part in the America's Cup the very next day. I had another early rise the next morning at 3:30 am and caught my flight to Honolulu. There, due to security reinforcement I had the pleasure of being search thoroughly 3 times, shoes off etc... and greeted in and out of terminals by guys with machine guns! I thought I might be nice and strike a conversation with these 'non-threatening-friendly looking' guys. I don't know, maybe asking them what they thought of their trigger happy president going all arms into Irak under increasingly unbelievable excuses when really it's all about petrol. But then again my original plan was to get myself a litre of coffee first (which is medium size in the US) before I did anything else! ;)
The rest is a bit of a haze, by the time I saw Jimmy's smiley face at Mexico City Airport, I'd taken 5 different flights, been in the air for a total of 25 hours, had 5 plane meals and 6 Airport ones, lived Valentine's Day twice due to crossing the International Date line and seemed to have had very little sleep all round! How I managed to drag myself to the heart of Mexico, along with Jim, Bee and some friends of theirs, to do a march against the war in Irak, I'll never know. Maybe the redbulls we'd had on my last night with the guys in Queenstown were still pumping through my veines! Who knows! but a few hours after my landing in Mexico, there I was, with hundreds of locals marching on to the rhythm of 'No a la Guerra, si a la paz!'.
Fortunately since then I have done nothing but been eating Tacos and other delicious Mexican food, planning a few trips out of Mexico which should happen shortly and spending some quality time with James and Bee! It's
slowly all sinking in. I am now waking up after most of you, lunch is a 3pm and everything can always be done manana!
Sorry for the humongous email but if this last week is anything to go by the next 3 months are gonna be pretty full and speedy!
Hope you're all well! Take care of yourselves. Let me know how you are all getting on!
Love
Little Mendez xxxx
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