To Mt. Doom and Back

... thankfully we ran into no orcs, dark lords, or other nasty things as we hiked through Mordor.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Lori and I returned from hiking and camping in the shadows of the amazing filming location for Mt. Doom and Mordor from Peter Jackson's film adaptation of JRR Tolkiens classic, The Lord of the Rings.

But to back up a bit. We hopped the dateline almost two weeks ago and arrived in the fabulous New Zealand. We love it. It's like a Canadian Hawaii here. The weather and scenery are stunning. The prices are unfortunately up and our money doesn't go nearly as far, but now we're back in the lands of huge supermarkets and prepare our own food with a little less trepedation.

We were in Auckland for a few days and bummed around the harbor front, saw the Sky Tower, and tried to figure out how we were going to cram in the vast amount of things you can do here into the short period of time in between pre-booked hikes. This was somewhat hampered by the fact that it's high-season. If you want to come to New Zealand in their summer, a word of warning - book ahead, and bring lots of cash (and don't miss Rotorua). Apologies to all of those who had high hopes for us doing cool things like zorbing...basically you have to go to Rotorua for that...which we did not.

From Auckland we headed to Taupo where we went to Tongariro park to hike the Northern Tongariro Circuit. What a hike it was. The scenery was a mix of alpine, grassy tussock, sandy desert, and haunting moonscape in mist surrounding Mt. Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom). We passed right under the crater of the volcano and could have climbed the to the top, but the weather unfortunately disallowed it. It was an all-round awesome hike.

Since Taupo we've made a mad dash through Wellington, Christchurch, and on to Queenstown, where we are now to start another hike tomorrow. The three day bus dash has left us with great views of the countryside and regrets about some of the awesome things that we missed.

New Zealand is a place not to be missed, and if you come leave two months. Very sorry for the stream of thought post, and taking so long to post altogether. The cost of internet has gone up, and the availability of internet cafes isn't quite as high as Central and South America where you can find one on every corner. Also, apologies for breaking the comment posting system....

It was hard to pick just a few pictures to put up, but here are a few goodies. Stay tuned, better post with more pics to follow.

there is a cockroach in this internet cafe

Last post from South America! As I type this, the suntan lotion so carefully applied to my face is rolling merrily into my eyeballs. Ah, intense, death-like heat. I just can´t get enough of it. Too bad we´re leaving for cooler climates where I can´t fry an egg on the sidewalk.

Danno and I have enjoyed these last few weeks in Argentina. We spent the first few days checking out the Perito Moreno Glaciar near El Calafate, Argentina. Pretty amazing to see chunks of it break off and crash into the lake below.

Our next stop was El Chalten - famous for it´s location at the foot of Mt. Fitz Roy, a climber´s mecca. Here, we camped for FREE! at the deeelightful campground with vomitous pit toilet and made some day hikes out to catch different views of the mountain. The spectacular vistas, excellent weather and tasty homemade chocolate made for a good time had by all.

A 2-day bus ride and one nearly-flattened armadillo later, we found ourselves in Bariloche, Argentina´s answer to Banff. Dan spent his time bemoaning the fact that we weren´t there in ski season, and I consoled him with endless varieties of homemade chocolate. By the time we left Bariloche, we had actually reached our cocoa bean threshold. (have no fear, we have since recovered).

Now, we are hours away from heading off to the U.S. en route to Auckland. Sad to say goodbye to the land of impromptu tangoing in the streets, gigantic steaks and free wine and champagne on the bus, but happy to be going to the land of kiwis and sheep.

Adios!