[a white Christmas]
Tuesday, 28 December, 2004
Hi again!
...Our christmas day was pretty good. We woke up at
steamboat springs and drove around looking at the
views, and one of those massive ski jumps that they
use at the olympics. Amazing to see so close. We met
a homeless guy on christmas eve who was googling over
his takings from begging on the street during
christmas eve. He had been given $50 dollar notes,
lots of $20´s, $10´s and lots of smaller ones. Not
bad for a homeless guy! We saw him the next morning
sitting in the service station sipping a coffee
looking very pleased with himself!
We drove over a couple of passes on the way back to
Denver and Yuma. We stopped on the top of the first
pass and built a snowman - but snow was so powdery and
dry that it wouldn´t stick so it was more like a
snowman pyramid! We will send you the photos when we
get a chance.
We went to Keiths mums place on christmas night for a
bit dinner - turkey, jelly and various salads etc. Boxing day
we spent with Keiths dad. Had nice breakfast, spent all
morning preparing lunch for 8 of us. After lunch we spent
most of the afternoon organising a solstice party
(combined christmas and new year party) that Tom holds
every year. We had lights up in the back yard, we
sculptured snow in a circle so there was a nice place
to stand around a big fire, a bit of finger food,
music and Keiths sister did a puppet show for the
kids. It was really good - but cold with it all being
outside. Keiths dad gave us a jar of really good honey
which is great.
Today we are spending in Yuma doing a bit of research
and trying to decide if we should buy any gear when we
go through Denver tomorrow.
Thats about all the news I have for now. We have yet
to plan exactly which roads we will drive down in the
next few weeks, but we can make it up along the way.
Not sure where we will be on new years.
Have a great new year and take care.
Bye for now
love nicola
[USA road trip]
Wednesday, 22 December, 2004
Hi there
...Just to let you know what we have been up to in the
last few days....
we left yuma and drove north through classic prarie
country. flat as a pancake. Got great 'big sky'
photos. We visited Mt Rushmore national monument and
saw the old presidents heads carved out of the
mountain. Pretty cool. we also visited the famous
Devils Tower rock formation (chris I remember seeing
your photos of this from your road trip south from
Regina to Devils tower). We caught it on sunset with
it pink and a black scary sky behind - very cool
weather. We then drove in snow fluries into the night
and parked around midnight last night somewhere in
southern montana. This afternoon we head into
Yellowstone NP. Not sure what we will be able to see
because of the snow and roads but we will go exploring
none the less. Sun is setting at 4pm and rising at
8am here, so long dark cold nights.... Lots of down
to sleep under in the back of the truck so we are warm
and comfortable!
Have a great week till christmas.
Lots of love
Nic and Andrew
* Chinnoble Adventures # 11
Wednesday, 15 December, 2004
Hello again
Again it has been some time since our last email and
we have been busy.
Last time we wrote we were somewhere in Brazil I
think. Soaking up the sun and surf on some of Brazils
most famous and beautiful beaches.
We spent 4 days on Ilha Grande - an island south of
Rio de Janiero and had a really relaxing few days
swimming, sun bathing and wandering through the jungle
looking at monkeys, huge spiders, butterflies and
birds of all colour and flavour. It was a fantastc
four days away from civilisation, internet, TV and
vehicles. We would have loved to stay longer but we
had a flight to catch so headed up to Rio de Janiero
for a few days before flying back to Chile.
Rio de Janeiro was an eyeopener. Extreme poverty,
extreme wealth, street kids who look at your
posessions like hungry dog looks at food. Intense
heat, crowded beaches and more g-strings than you ever
imagined. The world famous Copacabana beach was just
like the postcards - clear blue water, surf, and
georgous bronzed brazilians sunbathing by the
hundreds. After coming from the andies, our tans were
non existant and we stood out like shining white
beacons, quite comical really. We managed to escape
Rio with all our gear after having a few adventures
visiting lookouts, markets, museums and zooming around
on small trains, the underground and crazy buses. We
ate well, got too much sun and melted in the heat :-)
Nice!
We returned to Santiago and sadly said goodbye to our
good Chilean friends Luis, Lillian and family, our
hosts in Santiago, before flying up to Miami, Florida.
Everyone had warned us, and it was true, that we
spoke more of our limited Spanish in Miami than
English. We rented a car there for 6 days and spent
our time racing around the sights and sleeping in the
car each night in various rest areas, shopping centre
carparks and on the side of the road. Pitching the
tent by everglade swamps didn't sound too appealing to
us due to the excessive numbers of alligators.
While in Florida we raced down the Keys to Key West,
met some hardcase local hippies, gazed at all the
'over the top' houses, cars and boats, then headed
north to some forest parks. We drove up the west coast
of Florida stopping at more beaches and eventually
over to Orlando. Took a visit to the Kennedy Space
Centre (interesting with some very cool IMAX 3D
movies) and a fun park.
Needless to say when we flew out of Miami 6 days later
we were exhausted after a lack of sleep and too much
driving.
We caught a flight out of Miami to Dallas Fort Worth
and through to Tucson Arizona. There we met an
American friend Keith, who we spent the next month
with sailing. From Tucson we drove down to the small
town of Bahia Kino in Mexico in preparation for three
weeks of sailing in Keiths Catalina 22 boat Galadrial,
on the Sea of Cortez. We drove through the border and
neither the Mexican or the American officials seemed
to care who we were or where we were from, so Andrew
and I got no exit or entry stamps entering Mexico.
Same went with driving back through the border one
month later. As far as our passports show, we never
left the states and Mexico was just some figment of
our imagination. Very strange considering their over
the top security at airport borders.
We spent a day provisioning the boat and sorting out
storage for the truck before launching Galadrial and
sailing off on our merry way across the Sea of Cortez.
The area chosen and time of year suggested we would
have good wind for sailing. We sure did! We didn't
quite anticipate how many strong wind days we would
have however. Probably one of the reasons we saw not
one other pleasure vessel on the whole trip. We only
saw a handful of crazy mexican fishermen who take
their big "ponga" run-about boats out to the remote
islands and go night diving to spear fish and catch
lobsters. Their breathing apparatus consisted of a
rickety old compressor on the boat and a long hose
they suck on while underwater. When they want to
spend the night on shore, they just drive their boat
at full speed up the beach. It doesn't matter that it
is the middle of the night and pitch black when they
do this. They have very little safety equipment and
take huge risks in their work - hence we heard stories
of fishermen drowning only a few weeks before when
trying to motor back to Bahia Kino in the middle of
the night during a storm. The fishermen did however
provide us with some entertainment and some free fresh
fish for dinner one night.
During our 3 weeks on the water we ate 240 tortillas,
180 eggs and visited a total of 8 islands - all of
which are deserted with little vegetation - just cacti
and small grasses and shrubs. We saw many giant fin
back whales, sea lions (including a very cool colony
with a huge bull that circled our boat while we were
there), dolphins, pelicans and other exotic marine
birds. On the islands themselves we saw huge ants,
scorpians, and an owl but no sign of the 2 foot
lizzards or snakes we had been told about. We slept
on shore every night in comfort with full car camping
kit, propane cooker and light, table and chairs etc so
it was pretty luxurious. Most days we sailed and were
only hit by one 'norte' (North Wind - a weather system
that is notorious in the area and produces huge winds
and seas for 2-6 days) and spent a nervous two days
waiting it out at an anchorage that wasn't well
protected with the boat and our tent getting slammed
in every gust. We climbed a nearby volcano during the
storm to see what the wind was like and got slammed by
40 knot winds on the top. We could stand up - just,
but couldn't talk over the roar and had to be careful
of rocks that were being picked up and blasted
downwind.
The boat performed well on the trip except for a tear
in the mainsail and a broken rudder bolt (twice). Each
time we managed to fix it before it became too
serious. It was a good little adventure though as our
wee boat was being pummelled by the wind and swells,
miles away from any land. Keith was hanging over the
back of the boat holding the rudder together, Andrew
on the outboard trying to keep the boat into the wind
(an almost impossible task given the size of the
motor) while the motor was being swamped by waves and
Nic was trying to get the sails down, not fall off the
pitching foredeck and find all the spare parts
necessary to make a temporary fix.
We were relieved to reach the mainland again with all
personnal and boat in one piece. Since sailing we
have been driving - lots. From Bahia Kino to the
Mexico border, north to Tucson AZ to pick up the rest
of our gear, then across to New Mexico and up to
Denver, Colorado and finally out to Keiths parents
country town of Yuma. Thats 1500 miles (2400 km) of
driving! Tomorrow we will drive some more - but thats
ok cause we are heading into the Rockies to go skiing.
Yeehaa!
Thats about it for now.
Keep in touch and hope you all have a fantastic
Christmas and New Year wherever you are. We will be
here in Yuma doing the white Christmas thing for the
first time. No snow yet but one thing is for certain -
it will be COLD, and we won't be having a BBQ.
Merry Christmas
Andrew and Nic
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