Health Tips

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

So im just getting organized for my trip, i leave tomorrow morning, my bike is in the bike shop getting taken appart and put into a bike box ready to ship onto the aeroplane. im just sorting out last minute things like spare inner tubes and 200 flyers, and of course music for the ipod..!

good bye Melbourne……..Hello Wellington

from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/angecrez/1/1264887535/tpod.html

Acapulco, Pacific Coast, Mexico

You never reaaaaallly believe the taxi driver when he says the restaurant is real authentic local cuisine. You just wonder how much commission he gets. However, on this occasion he was trying to sell us the real package of a tour day of Acapulco – he was being graded by his judgment of food!

Everyone has their own way of judging quality before entering the restaurant, depending on your definition of quality of course. La Jaiba Locca (The Crazy Crab) immediately looked authentic being roadside with cars parked in the front lawn and the scent of grilled seafood wafting through the open, grated front.

The interior ambiance didn’t disappoint either, with not a single white face in the place. No offense, but it’s always refreshing to see the locals eating at the best ‘local’ restaurant in town!

Recommendations:

Marlin Chalupas – AMAZING! The flavor of the fish and the sauce was explosive, to say the least. I really wish I would have ordered a few more for my main course.

Camarones Skewer – fairly good, with a sea flavor which one should expect with seafood. The rice was also fabulous, so this dish had a bit more rice if that’s your thing.

If you ever get to this place, make sure you specify you want the fish grilled! Fried fish is not one of my favorites, so my entrée was less than hoped for.

Finally, note to self, when a server in Mexico up-sells you to the Margarita Supremo, do not accept. It just means more syrup, not more alcohol!

Otherwise, we’ve been fairly lame and stuck to the resort areas. Probably due to the ridiculous red-eye journey on the way down. Never, ever do this. You are destroyed for the first day anyway, so you might as well arrive fresh!

Tomorrow: a trip into downtown Acapulco and hopefully a bit of street food!

from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/valliegrl/1/1264952433/tpod.html

El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

From El Bolson we caught a veeeeeeeeeeery veeeeeeery long bus journey to a place called El Chalten, the trekking capital of Argentina as it calls itself.

The journey to El Chalten was a complete nightmare, despite the fact that it was already meant to be 30 hours, the bus broke down on Ruta 40 (probably the worlds remotest highways). Its the main link between the north and south of Argentina but about 70% of it remains unpaved (if you ever travel down this road then ladies a sports bra is a must!!). We stopped abruptly at about 10.30 in the evening to the news that we had a flat tyre Ok you think, given that these buses do these routes every day, but not so good when there´s no spare tyre!!! We had to wait 10 hours for the Argentinian equivilant of the RAC to turn up!!! Eventually we had a new tyre fitted and we were on our way but the lesson we learnt from this was that you can never take too much food or water on a bus ´just in case´.

When we got to El Chalten we were absolutely knackered and completely phased by the reason we had come to the place…..to do some hardcore trekking!! We just felt like curling up by a log fire with a bottle of malbec and a good book. Ash soon snapped out of this after talking to some fellow travellers and informed me that we were doing a 15 mile trek the next day to a glacier and that we were off to the supermarket for supplies!!!

The hostel was really nice (actually as are most that we have stayed in!) and even though we were in a dorm room (Patagonia is really expensive) we had a good nights sleep and were ready for the walk the next day. We walked to the Laguna Torre and were overwhelmed by the scenery (and Liz by the number of hills!), just have a look at the attached pictures! At one point we arrived at a relatively small but fast flowing river which cut across the main trail we were following. If it had just been us there we may not have been sure what to do but because there was some other people there taking their boots and socks off to cross the river (more of a stream!!) we decided to do the same. I went across first on the proviso that i stopped half way for Ash to take a picture, however it was so cold i ran across. It was only when Ash got into the water and squealed like a banshee (honestly!!) that he realised why i had gone so quick because it was so cold!

The day after we did another stunning walk to the Laguna de los Tres which is at the foot of Cerro Fitz Roy. There were lots of glaciers, icy cold rain showers and tremendous gusts of wind (and not just Ash!!).

Again we met lots of lovely fellow travellers in El Chalten – Saskia and Cecilia to name but a few! On our last night in El Chalten we treated ourselves to a meal out. Ash ordered steak (and Liz lamb stew). Ash asked for his steak rare but you should have seen the look on his face when the waiter bought out an uncooked peice of meat on a plate and asked if that was ok!!! The waiter then laughed and said the cheif thought it would be a joke to see the look on his face!! When the real peice of meat came out we both really enjoyed our meals and even the dulce con leche cheesecake which was delicious!!!

from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/grandtourist/1/1264950008/tpod.html