Its been a while since we uploaded a post in English. So for you non dutchies, this one is for you. But you dutchies can also read this ofcourse. As im writing this we are waiting in transit at the Santiago de Chili airport. Since we havent realy been able to write anything for the past two weeks, Ill update you guys about it. As you know, we went skydiving, canyonswinging, kayakking and more fun activities. The last two weeks we have been driving around and only had 3 major things that we wanted to do and see. Driving around in a campervan is a cool experience, it gives you freedom but i have to admit with three people in such a small van, it can be a bit challenging with having your own space 😉 .

One of the things that we wanted to do and see was the Tongariro crossing. This trek is 20 km’s long, goes as high as 2200 meter and was also Lord of the Ring location called Mordor. It took us 7 hours to complete the walk. We started at 9 oclock in the morning and finished at 4 oclock in the afternoon. The beginning of this walk was grusome, it was so steep uphill that every 10 to 20 minutes we had to take a break. And we have to admit after south east asia, we havent been walking that much anymore, we had to get used to that again I guess. But finally being on top of Mount Tongariro, made all our efforts worth it. Even though the next four days we all had muscle aches we still didnt want to miss out on it.

We even saw volcanic lakes, things that we had to miss out on in Indonesia. So our day couldnt get any better.

“Share the Load!!!”

Our second thing that we wanted to see on the Northern Island of New Zealand was, you diehard Lord of the Ring fans may guessed it already. We went to see the famous little town called Hobbiton. This is the actual place where Peter Jackson and his crew filmed a substantial part of the Lord of the Ring trilogy and also the Hobbit trilogy. We had only just watched the Lord of the Ring trilogy, so walking around in the Shire (the name of the village where the hobbits live) was realy cool but a little surreal the experience. The guide told us a few inside stories about how Peter Jackson came to the decission of filming on that particular location and about what he all had to do so that the Shire had that “magical” Lord of the Rings feel to it. One of them was hiring a a guy just to scare the birds away and one to remove all the frogs from the pond in the village. You gotta do what you gotta do for that great shot, right?

Last but not least, and this was a difficult one for me because I was looking for it the whole time since we were in New Zealand and I only found once before. This was the possibilty to surf. We had been to a few place where there should have been god waves. But for some reason everytime we were there, there were no waves at all. But then in Auckland we got a tip from a Brazilian lady who had been living in New Zealand form more then 10 years, to go to a little place called Piha. So we followed that tip and man what a tip it was. It wasnt so that the waves were perfect or anything but the scenery where we were surfing in was amazing. The first glimps of the beach and seeing that the waves were good enough to surf, put a smile on my face and i couldnt get it to go away.

It feels so good to lay in the water and wait for that wave to come. Its just you, the water and your board. Its tough at times especially swimming out into the ocean, but i have to say it is realy relaxing. As you can imagine, surfing is a thing that I would like to continue once im back in Holland.

Like said before, on the Northern Island we were mostly driving around and seeing gorgious landscapes, but to keep on saying that landscape is beautifull gets boring for you guys to read. But thats also a reason why we havent written that much and often about New Zealand. But now were of too Peru. Cant wait to find out what that country has to offer us.