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World Trip Newsletter #1 (December 2006 - January 2007) Our big adventure has begun and this is the first installment of the monthly (hopefully) trip reports we will be sending out. This is just a brief overview of what we've been up to lately. You can click on the links for full trip reports.
Going Away Party
You can't leave the country for a year without a big send-off. Our friends Kirsten and Amy gathered everyone together in the same place at the same time, gave us a bunch of 'Kirsten's Cosmos' and let the celebration unfold. Sarah and I donned our cultural attire in honor of all the countries we will be visiting on this trip (and also because we love dressing up in costumes :-) The party was great fun but bittersweet as we will miss our lovely friends this year. Click here for full trip report.
Mexico
Mexico was our vacation before the trip. Sarah and I went down on December 18th so we could get in some long climbs before the crowds descended for the holidays. We made lots of new friends this year but were elated when our gang from San Francisco and Texas showed up. We quickly became one big, happy family and enjoyed lots of fabulous climbing and fajita eating together. All this culminated in the traditional New Year's Eve party at Homero's. We rode the mechanical bull, drank tequila and danced til we dropped (which I'm sad to say was only slightly after midnight ;-). Spending the holidays in El Potrero Chico is so much fun that we're quite tempted to end our trip as it began - with a vacation in Mexico. We'll see how the money holds out. Click here for full trip report.
Sickness and Health
We got back to SF with four days to implement the numerous packing lessons we learned from the Mexico trip. Unfortunately, I was stricken down by a death virus and was so disabled that we had to postpone our flight to New Zealand by two days. While I longed for Nurse Her to come take care of me, Kirsten filled in nicely by providing much love and care and medicine (Nurse Her never did that). However, Kir couldn't resist capturing the moment on film (Nurse Her never did that either). Thankfully there is no full trip report.
New Zealand
After a stressful week, we finally got on our flight and made our way to the other side of the world. We took a picture to show you how we looked from your vantage point in the Northern Hemisphere (jet lag inspired ridiculousness). We hit our reset buttons and not only righted ourselves, but freed ourselves up to embrace all the new, upside-down things we would be encountering in this new land. After some close calls on the other side of the road (as driven from the other side of the car), we made it from Queensland in the South Island down to TeAnau to start our 4-day tramp on the Kepler Track. We hiked a total of 66 km up and down hills in perfect weather. We got to stay at the tramping huts each night and were adopted, and fed, by a lovely family (who knew we'd need to eat twice our body weight in food each day?!) After all the hiking, we propped our feet up onboard the Fiordland Navigator and took an overnight tour of Doubtful Sound. We saw amazing views, kayaked, swam, ate a lot at the buffet and met some really cool people from BC who we quickly bonded with and hope to run into again along the way. Click here for full trip report.
Coming Up We'll be in New Zealand for a few more weeks. We're slowly making our way up to the north end of the South Island and along the way we'll be doing some rock climbing, canyoning, kayaking and more hiking. Stay tuned! Leslie and Sarah
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