Wrapping up 2015!

 

We’re almost getting to that time again, the new year is approaching upon us and soon we’ll be saying ‘Au revoir’ to 2015. Feeling truly grateful for this year, for all the blessings, health, places I’ve left my footsteps behind, ’once in a lifetime’ experiences that I wouldn’t trade it for the world and destinations that swept me off my feet. These highlights gave me butterflies as well as affirmation for the choices I made in life. To live in the present. To live for these moments.

 

I couldn't be happier with how “Minimalism” way of living has helped me to open my eyes to see what’s important in life and what matters the most. It all make sense now. Because for this very reason, it’s possible for me to go to these dreamy places. Determination and some sacrifice here and there worth the rewards in the end. By not accumulating more possessions, I realized that I already have more than I need and really appreciate them instead.  More space equals clearer mind so I heard. This way, I can focus more on doing what I love the most.

 

 

First travel this year was a summer weekend away at a coastal place in the North Island of New Zealand called Mount Maunganui. It was early morning departure, weather was bit chilly and we were cruising away on the lookout for Common Dolphins who are known to be the local residents here. Then 1, 2, 3….. a pod started to appear from a distance, they  came closer to the boat and racing alongside us! Mothers and calves. Captain slowed the boat down and whoever wanted to snorkel with them can jump into the water. It was adorable to hear their squeaky noise. We had to make funny noises in our snorkelling gear too to entertain them. I guess it takes two to tango after all!

 

Then came Easter. I whisked myself away to the South Pacific country called Kingdom of Tonga. From soaking in fresh water pool in Anahulu cave to going around the island on local rickety bus, Tonga was indeed a place I longed to return.

 

Long weekend trip to South Island before Autumn was next. My mission was to do some walks at the national park and check out tallest mountain in NZ. Unlucky with the weather, Mt Cook was shy to come out and play. Headed to Kaikoura, it was again unlucky to spot any Whales however thoroughly enjoyed flying experience above the mountain ranges and over Kaikoura ocean.  Followed by a short trek afterwards to Ohau Falls, watching pod of seal pups jumping in and out of the water. Such a cute performance!

 

I was on the plane back to South Island the following month for another attempt of Whale Watching. Why not since it was a free attempt! Second time lucky this time, it was awesome to fly over a Sperm Whale finally! Then a day visit to quirky Akaroa, admiring a French settlement town on the peninsula. A night spent in 'Jailhouse' afterwards, it's not as freaky as  it sounds, it was in fact a jail converted hostel. Still lived up to the experience I'd say!

 

Few months passed by,  came the big trip that I had been yearning for in over a year. South America! 6 weeks filled with adventures, cultures, trying new things that enticing, mesmerising and challenging.

 

Then a return trip to Tonga. Eua Island has definitely given me more than what I bargained for. Swimming with Humpback whales in their natural habitat, its friendly calf who were curious to us as we were to him! Hiked around national park, drinking water from a tree branch, devouring papaya, exploring numerous of caves to name a few.

 

Hiking trip to South Island, New Zealand on the weekend of November. Off-roading the road to Lake Coleridge, driving through Alpine forest, hiking the Port Hills track, submerging in the thermal pool of Hanmer Springs.

 

To close off this year, I'll be heading back across the ditch. Always been intrigued to see one of the whitest beach in the world, Whitehaven in Whitsunday Islands, Australia. They said it was so pure and clean, you can wash your jewellery in it! Not that I have fancy jewellery to wash ha!  Then bus up north to Townsville and short ferry ride to Magnetic Island to do some hikes and hopefully spot some Koalas, my favourite animal, living in the wild chewing on some eucalyptus leaves or perhaps having a snooze on tree branches. As what they do best!

 

That is all folks! my wrap up of 2015 adventure filled year. I’d say bring on the new year! To you who believe in dreams; keep traveling, keep dreaming, keep on keeping on....

 

 

 

Keeping It Real in Brazil

After spending a week on my own getting to know some locals and checking out this fabulous city of Rio(previous blog), I joined up with Tucan Travel and for the next 28 days we were traveling overland with 'Rosita', she's a bright yellow truck-converted bus who took us on an epic journey to countless beaches, local villages, colorful valleys, mountain ranges all the way from world's famous Rio to one of highest altitude cities in the world, La Paz in Bolivia. Since we were only a small group, it was great in terms of space we had in the truck for each of us. The truck can hold up to 30 people capacity however we were only 7 at that time plus 1 guide and 1 driver. It was much better arrangements. Inside the truck there were couple of tables for socializing, eating etc while at the back of the bus there was a bookshelf from South America Lonely Planet edition to kinds of novel genre to name a few. We all can help ourselves with any book we fancied to read while on the road. 

Colourful town of Paraty

We divided our group in to two, alternating who's in charge for doing the cooking and washing dishes. If one team was doing cooking & grocery shopping, the other team was in charge of the dishes afterwards. Our Tour Leader, Virginia(V) happened to have a formal Cooking background, I remember when we had Pizza night, she could whip up homemade pizza from scratch. The verdict? it was a restaurant quality, delicioso indeed! The rest of the meals were enjoyable too, by cooking our meals, we were always eating fresh home made dish! We didn't cook every night though, only when we were camping. Speaking of Camping, this was one of our accommodation type, we camped for around 2 weeks in total on many various places of Brazil and Argentina. As for the rest of the duration we were mixing between staying in Hostel Dorms and Hotels.

Paraty baby!

"Rosita" caught checking out the view  :)

First stop of this Tucan trip was a costal town of Paraty, around 4 hours drive from Rio. It's known as historic town surrounded with beaches and mountain ranges. We pitched our tent here and stayed for 3 days however we were quite unlucky with the weather. Only the first afternoon we arrived, it was a nice day so we tried to make the best of it and went to nearby beach and hit the ocean. We enjoyed the afternoon before sunset with few of potent Brazilian national cocktails, Caipirinhas in hand. It was proven that the Cachaca(local white rum made of sugar cane) content were very generous! No one was complaining obviously haha! We took a day cruise the next day although it was overcast in the morning and showers came later in the day, we did manage to do some snorkeling and cruising around nearby islands before the rain got heavier. More Caipirinhas please!

Marajuca Caipirinha-Caipirinha Passion Fruit

Local lady weaving in Paraty

Some entertainment we got going on here!

Our next stop from Paraty was Pantanal. Due to the distance to reach this place, we had to break the journey and stayed the night in a small town called Brotas. It's known as an Eco-Tourism destination. However, since we only arrived here in the evening, we didn't venture much of what this place has to offer. After pitching the tent, we had cold dip in the pool and devoured on pasta dish afterwards. We wandered around the small town center, had couple of drinks before we all hit the sack.

What a welcome sight in Pantanal!

Hungry boys?

Leaving Brotas the next rainy morning, we continued our way to Pantanal. After around 10 hours on the road, the ride became more bumpy. We were driving on gravel road, which finally, we were crossing into Pantanal region. Pantanal is one of the biggest wetlands in the world that is famous for its wildlife like jaguar, capybara (largest rodent in the world), caimans, howler monkeys, piranhas, colorful and exotic range of birds such as Macaws and Tucan. This was our home for the next three days with hammocks as our bed. I really loved this place and its simplicity. The accommodation was quite rustic, we slept above the kitchen. Yes it gets quite smokey at times, also don't get me started with the mosquitoes, they were in fact massive and somehow mauled us alive! However I tried not to be bothered with these minor distractions. We were all there to switch off, connected with nature and eat amazing Brazilian food that the cook prepared for us every day. Those were literally the things we did for the entire time. There was a river behind our accommodation and it was infested with caimans and piranhas! It seems they were not a threat to us vice versa, some of the guys were brave enough to jump and swim in that murky river. I had my feet soaked knee deep only though. We did horse riding and jungle trekking with our lovely guide, Pedro, who were in fact, always bare feet. Then we had jeep safari during day and night on the lookout of some exotic animals that call this place home. We saw a family of capybara as they were submerging into the river, they were in fact much cuter than a rat! we also came across a snake tried to cross the road in the middle of the night, then there was Tapir, an animal looks like pig but with trunk; and more caymans along the river, both dead and alive, we saw vultures in action, scavenging some dead animals. Although we didn't come across Jaguar on both of our safaris, overall it was still amazing encounters with the wildlife! In one afternoon we were cruising the river with Pedro and made a stop somewhere to fish some Piranhas. When we caught them, they made this distinctive noise and I couldn't help myself to quickly touch its sharp teeth. We took some of our decent size catch back to our shack kitchen and handed to the cook to work her magic on them and served it to us. How often do you have Piranhas on the menu for dinner? It turned out to be very tasty and meaty for a small fish. We demolished it in no time! Right to the very bone. Oh wait, the latter was just me lol. I have obsession with bones! Sometime I even wonder why I have couple of fangs.

Piranha

River Cruising

Every night we saw capybaras and foxes gathered around our place, lurking in the distance. It was so surreal to be surrounded by these exotic animals. Also they were harmless if you don't disturb them. Every morning we were awoken by a choir of Blue Macaws and other birds that constantly singing above our hammock shack. Strangely they were all making noise at the exact same time. That was our alarm clock indeed. Ah for me, Pantanal was truly one of my favorite places of all time. 

After bidding goodbye to this gem, we drove to Bonito. It's renowned of river snorkeling destination in the world, where the color was unbelievably crystal clear blue with high visibility to spot many colorful fishes in the distance, some of its famous resident were group of big and scary, Dourado. We camped again here and did some excursions like snorkeling in Rio da Prata river, visiting Gruta da Lago Azul, a cave where we took 300 steps down to the deep cavern to reach the blue lagoon. Stunningly beautiful! We also did Tubing in the river, where we were floating on our own tube passing some waterfalls and rapids. It was more kind of relaxing activity to spend the afternoon. 

From here we made our way to Foz do Iguassu or easily translated as Iguazu Falls. Due to its far distance from Bonito, we had to make a stop and slept overnight on the road. Waking up with sore back, we continued on to our final destination across Brazil. I think we were all pretty excited to finally see one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. To get to the falls, from the entrance, we had to hop on the bus and ride for about 10 minutes and from there, it was where the trek to the waterfalls started. Even from a distance we can already hear the roar and thunderous noise, it built up our excitements even more! As we finally saw the waterfalls, we were just standing there in amazement, trying to comprehend this massive mother nature right before our eyes. To see waterfalls on that scale with rainbows everywhere, falls roaring loudly on the background was just overwhelming. A breathtaking sight indeed! We then continued our walk following the trek surrounded by lush tropical forest to get closer to the falls. Then we got to the place called Devil's Throat, which was a footbridge where we could get closer to the falls and ended up soaking wet from the spray. I opened my mouth widely letting the Iguazu goodness quenching my thirst and screamed for more! It was one of the most surreal feelings I could ever experience! My admiration of waterfalls was at its peak! I could stand there without a worry in the world staring at the gushing water before my eyes and soaking at that immense power forever. 

Majestic Iguazu Falls

Once all the excitements calmed down, we hopped on the public bus and made our way to the adjacent country of Paraguay. Funnily enough, you don't need visa or passport to get through the border. From town centre we each paid about $3 Brazillian Real which was nothing and made across the border in 20 minutes. Paraguay at the border of Foz do Iguazu is known as shopping destination for Brazilian and tourists who were in the vicinity. It caters from cheap clothes to electronics. You do need to bargain to get best price though. 

Such a delightful time overall in Brazil! I miss it every time my memory brings me back there. Just writing this gave me butterflies, cherishing those moments spent in this beautiful and diverse country. Foz do Iguassu was the conclusion of our time here then we drove to the border, said "Adeus" to Brazil and headed to our next stop, Argentina! 

 

Brazil, OBRIGADA!

Cave with Blue Lagoon

Brazilian Flag

Rainbows everywhere. So pretty!

Devil's Throat footbridge