A cruising we will go!

The Vendam

 We sailed out of Buenos Aires at 9 pm on December 20 and before we were out of port a container ship crane swung around and hit the top of the cruise ship. It smacked the side of the "Crows Nest", the disco, on the 12th deck and the highest point on the ship. There was not much damage, and only a couple of minor injuries, but the coast guard made us anchor just out of harbor until they could do a daylight inspection of the ship to ensure it was still sea worthy. Twelve hours later we were on our way again, but we will miss one port stop (Port Madryn) to make up for the lost time. So is life, be happy, no problemo!

On the way to the cruise ship terminal in the taxi, I realized why Argentinians make great Formula One race car drivers. Traffic was extremely heavy and they have this way of straddling the dotted line to make five lanes out of four, or six out of five, and they are all very good at it. Sometimes you think wow, there is no room here and somehow they manage to slide through between two other vehicles all trying to get onto the same lane. At one point, another taxi pulled out of an intersection into our lane and for thirty feet the drivers just kept staring at each other as they played chicken about which one was getting the lane, but it worked out and with one cab half way into the next lane and the other almost on the sidewalk we eventually got to where they wanted to be.

We arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, 12 hours late so spent December 22 instead of December 21 in port while the ship resupplied and refueled for the journey south. Montevideo is an old colonial style city and the country, like Argentina, went from being a leading exporter of manufactured goods to broke and is still trying to recover. Classes here seem to be very poor (like tin and cardboard housing poor), poor, lower middle class, rich and extremely rich. Uruguay is a small country stuck between Brazil and Argentina with a population of about 3.5 million - 1.3 million live in the port city of Montevideo.

Montevideo is like other South American Spanish influenced cities, with lots of plazas and statues of their heros that gained independence. To me the best statues in Montevideo are the two that are dedicated to the settlement of the land, one of an oxcart of settlers and one of a stage coach of pioneers.



The Stage Coach of Pioneers

Another interesting statue is one depicting five indigenous people that belonged to a tribe that refused to recognize Uruguay government, so they were exterminated at the direction of the president. Five were left alive, a chief, a medicine man, a warrior and a mother and her baby. They were captured and sent to a circus in Europe were they spent the remainder of their lives on display as exhibits. 

The Indigenous

It is mostly a rural culture and now the biggest exports are beef to Russia, soy to China and wine to the US, Canada and Europe.

True to our reasons for coming to the southern countries in South America, for the wine experience, we spent our day in Uruguay touring a winery, having lunch and sampling the expressions and vintages. Like Chile and Argentina, Uruguay is known for European grapes that grow in these countries better than they do in Europe. They grow a Tannant grape from France, and the samples we had at the vineyard were vey good. I had never drank Tannat before but was impressed, especially with the merlot-tannat blends.

The Winery

We were served four samples before lunch and their premium vintage with the main course. There were about fifty people on the tour but only about five or six besides Loreen and I were true connoisseurs of wine! Some of the folks hardly sampled any, while others just drank the whites or the reds, but we true connoisseurs sampled to the fullest and emptied every glass they poured for us. We were troupers and very considerate of their feelings!

The Wines

We sat with a fellow that was born in Chile whose ancestors were from Croatia and he has lived in Britain for the past 35 years. His family still has property in both Chile and Croatia. He was great to visit with and has a vast knowledge of the settlement of the Patagonia and mining areas of both Chile and Argentina. These areas have more descendants from Croatian, Scottish and Welsh ancestry than either Spanish or Italian, which are the dominate two countries where South Americans immigrated from.

On our second day into the cruise I watched a lady walk by the pool and thought, now where do I know that lady from, but was not sure. Then later in the day she walked past again with her husband and yes it was a couple, Harm and Elly, from Holland that we had met in January at Uluru in Australia. We did not make contact that day but tracked them down at the pool the next afternoon and spent a nice couple of hours catching up. What a small world.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

A wish for the best during the holiday season and all the best in the coming year.

or as they say in Buenos Aires
Feliz Navidad y Feliz Ano Nuevo

Last days in Buenos Aires

Today is our last day in Buenos Aires, tomorrow we catch the boat for a cruise around the tip of South America and into the Antarctic.

Buenos Aires has been hard for us communication wise. The country itself has not been difficult, intimidating or unenjoyable, but the language barrier has made it hard. We knew this going in and Keenan certainly let us know the language situation would be tough, but nothing ventured nothing gained! We are just now at a place where we feel comfortable to try and ask questions in Spanish. I still can only pick out the odd word in the answers, but if I can understand one or two words I can usually figure it out. Loreen asks lots of questions in bus stations, etc, then looks at me when they respond in Spanish, but with my few Spanish words, our phrase book, their few English words and some miming we can get it figured out. However, our experience would have been so much better if we knew the language. I am so glad that Keenan chose French Immersion as a child and has went on to learn more languages, people that have languages can enjoy the world outside of the English community so much better. A young couple, Christian and Katherine, from Switzerland arrived the week after us at the school and s stay at the same B&B. They already have three languages and are picking up Spanish much more rapidly than us.

Loreen, Katherine and Christian

Argentinians are a friendly, polite bunch of people that seem to live a happy life. They chatter and laugh in the bars, restaurants and in the streets. The country has ancestry from many European countries, but the heaviest immigration was from Spain and Italy and the Argentinian psyche is a marriage of the two cultures. Although they speak Spanish, they say it is in an Italian style, what ever that means. Some communities still have the old European traditions from the homeland, like Port Madryn, where Welsh tea and crumpets are taken every afternoon.

Beef Cattle

Argentina brags about their beef and they say it is the best in the world and it is a beef dominated culture. Every restaurant has a page dedicated to the cow and you can order any and all parts, including tripe, sweetbreads, tongue and all other organ meats. We stick to steak, ribs and veal and it is all delicious. It took us a couple of days to figure out how to order as everything is shared. Our first meal was a lettuce, tomato, carrot salad, to share and each of us ordered a steak. The salad came in a medium sized serving bowl and the steaks were probably around 16 to 18 ounces cooked with spices over a wood fired grill, delicious but far too much to eat. Now we order a salad to share, maybe one empanada or a chorizo sausage (both to die for) and one meat dish to share. Very few restaurants serve a dish like we do with vegetables and starch on one plate - you order those as a side dish. We stick to a salad as a side dish as the tomatoes and onions are oh so good, sweet and full of taste. Argentina is a carnivores delight and the meat, mostly grass fattened, is as good as any I have eaten - to me better than US or Australian beef, and as good or better than New Zealand and Canadian beef, it is so tender and full of flavor.

Yesterday we passed large market and fruit gardens on the way to San Antonio de Areca, a small country town of Gaucho heritage. Argentina is the largest producer and exporter of soy beans in the world. Some of the fruits, like banana, come from Ecuador, but the country is mostly self sustainable.

Front of the Estancia

San Antonio de Areca is a quaint little town with clean streets, lovely housing and several museums dedicated to Gaucho history - like Fort Steele, Fort Calgary and Fort Macleod all put together in Spanish. The tack they use is different than ours, saddles are a simple woolen pad with a little seat and wooden or steel stirrups and the most severe spade and combination spade/lower jaw ring bits that I have ever seen. They were absolutely brutal, but there were also hackamore rigs that have no mouth piece or jaw ring at all, so I guess they are like us, some used harsher methods of control on their horses than others. There were also some wicked spurs with one and a half inch dagger point rowels and two three inch jingle chains on each shank - they were pretty but hopefully they were just for show. The carriages and buggies looked the same as our buggies from the 1800's did, but the ranch houses were different, the one even had a little dirt barricade and cannon in the front yard, not sure if the cannon was for the natives or the neighbors!

Back of the Estancia with left wing

We have enjoyed our time here, but it is time to move on, so as they say in Buenos Aires, Chau and Hasta Luego!

Tigre, The Rio Plata and San Telmo

We had a nice long weekend in BA, Thursday and Friday were holidays for a religious celebration, the Day of the Immaculate Conception.

Saturday we took a tour to the town of Tigre, about one hour from the city center by train. We took a public train to San Isidro and then we were to take the tourist train on to Tigre, but they had shut the tourist train down for the day. Seems someone had thrown a rock at it, broke a window and hit a tourist in the head. So back to the public system we hiked and pressed ourselves back onto the train. Only on trains in Japan have I been more crowded. There the train employees push you on after the train is full, here only the people keep crowding you in. It was easy to balance against the sway, extreme masses of people keep you upright.

A Canal in Tigre

Tigre is a combination Venice/Florida Everglades kind of place. It is situated on the confluence of three rivers in an area of islands, canals and tourist attractions. Originally started as an inland port town, it was surpassed by more available ports downstream and slipped into a bootlegger/smuggler town. The canals are endless and with numerous islands to hide amongst, the area prospered at this. Now it is a vast area of cottages on islands shored up by timber and concrete break walls to keep the soil erosion in control. The area is the most polluted waterway in Argentina and the banks of the larger canals are littered with ship wrecks. The pollution does not stop the use of the river for water sports. The area is like any ocean or lake town with cruise boats, and private craft of all shapes and sizes plying the water ways. Many people live here year round and are supplied with floating stores, markets, water taxis and water buses for the school children. The town of Tigre now has a large casino and amusement park and 1000's of Buenos Airians flock there on weekends.

On an Island in the Tigre Delta

The Rio Plata, into which the Tigre drains, is a wonder onto itself. The river is made up from drainage that runs from the highlands of Paraguay, northern Argentina and Uruguay. It becomes the widest river in the world where it enters the Atlantic Ocean, some 220 kms in width. The large basin seen from the air, some argue that it is a large bay not a river, goes inland for 290 kms before it starts to break into a delta area of many smaller water ways. Buenos Aires is upstream from the mouth of the river 115 kms and due to the amount of sediment in the river the channel has to be dredged constantly for the huge container and other ships that port here. The size of the city of Buenos Aires was fully realized on our boat trip back in from Tigre. You fly into large cities, but the enormity is minimized by the speed of travel and being in the air. When you are in a boat and you travel along the water front for half an hour just to get to the center your light bulb moment is kind of, whoa this place is huge.

The Rio Plata from the air

Buenos Aires is a contrast from rich to poor, from new to old and shows in many ways what can happen when the lofty fall. At one time Argentina was one of the richest nations in the world, but a combination of pride, the 1930s depression, a succession of military dictatorships and a debt load that no longer could be serviced has moved Argentina from a leading country to one that is working to regain a leading place in the world of culture and economics. Many barrios in Buenos Aires have new modern shopping plazas, high rise condos, and modern office complexes. But with an average yearly age of US $7,000 many areas of the city are still depressed with large ghetto like communities.

Typical San Telmo Architecture

San Telmo, the barrio we are staying in, was once the barrio of the rich and aristocratic of Buenos Aires. They built huge homes and estates here, similar in size and elegance to the plantation homes in the southern US. Many of the buildings we have been in, including the home we stay at, have marble floors in the foyers and marble stairs and as single family homes, I am guessing, they are in the neighborhood of 3,000 to 5,000 square feet. Today these homes are chopped up into apartments, stores and schools. A lot have deteriorated and are in need of TLC. The building structures are very sound, but the paint, plumbing and electrical could be upgraded. There is not enough income to upgrade at a pace equal to growth in other areas of the world.

Buenos Aires Traffic

Buenos Aires sees some seven million tourists a year and the areas for the tourists have certainly been brought up to a higher standard than some pure residential areas. There is no recycling program in BA, the result is an overwhelming amount of rubbish on the streets. By Sunday nights the streets become very cluttered and dirty, this includes heaps of dog excrement, as BA has an extremely high dog population with very little green space, so the job is completed on the sidewalks. About one in twenty dog owners is seen with a plastic pick up bag. By Monday morning the streets are quite clean as a massive effort in cleaning is completed sometime overnight Sunday.

All that said we are privileged to be able to be here and experience the warmth of the Argentinian people, the culture and the food. More about the food next blog.

Graduation! Classmate Amber, Teacher Cecilia, Loreen y Me

Spanish School, the City, and Polo Ponies

Three days into Escuela de Espanol, and it is not easy. We spent most of these days learning how, well that is false, trying to learn how to conjugate verbs in Spanish. It's hard for me to do in English! We have progressed to the point where the instructor will only speak to us in Espanol and we are only to speak to her in Espanol. If we sit there long enough with a bewildered look, she will eventually tell us what to do in Inglese. Loreen has a special way of doing it! Next week is to be all about learning vocabulary and phrase structure. It seems that Argentina has their own way of speaking Spanish and use different sounds for certain letters than the rest of South America or Spain. We have one other lady from England in our class, so with only three of us we get a lot of attention. Amber, the English lady, I think actually studies in the evenings as she seems to be advancing quicker than Loreen and I (also, this is the fourth winter that she and her husband have spent in BA). People here are maybe a little hard of hearing as I often have to repeat my simple Spanish three or four times before a little light comes on in their eyes and they say something different but always bring us back what we ordered:) I can now start to pick out some commonly used words in a conversation. One in about every three hundred!

We have been out and about the city a bit, a couple of days wandering on foot, a city bus tour and a long day yesterday through a few barrios picking up other turistas to go out to a polo club, about 65 kilometers in the country. It is a huge city with everything from homes built in the 1800's to modern homes. It is laid out on a square grid and housing numbers run from zero up from the city center so it is easy to find our way around. Like any city it has some pretty dodgy areas and we don't pack any bling. The streets, other than the very main corridors are all a lane and a half, although they seem to be able to get three cars wide some how, one way. A large percentage of the streets in the downtown are still cobble stone.

On our drive yesterday we passed huge modern shopping complexes, didn't see any Costco but Walmart stores. Shopping may be a national pastime as every parking lot was full of vehicles (and even late in the evening). I guess this is not unusual here as Argentinians do not go out for the evening meal until 9 or 10 in the evening, Loreen and I are starved by 6. Then to be very cool they venture out to night clubs at around two in the morning. We have not adapted well to those hours yet and our host family must think we are pretty dull! We have eaten dinner and are home by the time they start to make the evening meal. The English lady at school goes for drinks at 8:30 and then for dinner and they are usually the first ones in the restaurant.

We spent yesterday at a polo club out in the country. Polo is very big in Argentina, with maybe the best players in the world. It is also a rich sport, some of the horses used by the national team cost upwards of $200,000 US. Lots of polo families children grow up on polo camps (farms) and go into other professions, but keep a few horses at clubs and play makeup games on days off and weekends. It was a club like this we were at. We watched a four chukka game, four periods of ten minutes each, four players to the side. Having never even watched polo on television it was very interesting and not too many rules. You switch the direction of the goals every time the ball crosses the goal line and you are not allowed to cross in front of another rider, although you are allowed to push them off the ball with your horse as long as you don't cross in front. After the game we were treated to an asado (BBQ or grill) which was very, very tasty. We had empanadas, chorizo sausage, beef short ribs, blood sausage, salads, roasted vegetable side dishes and plenty of Malbec. There are no sauces on the meat just seasonings and local olive oil and vinegar for the salads. Argentina has vast grass plains and the beef is mostly grass finished, tender and flavorful. They love their beef here and are probably the largest consumers of beef per capita in the world. Not too much on fruit and vegetables though.

Then all us tourists had a quick lesson in polo and riding and out to the field we went for a little polo match. Two Argentinian amateurs, a British girl that is here training and the tourists played a "free for all" game. Not being competitive at horse sports, I kind of held back and let the rest take the lead, not! My caballo, Feona and I got along great and we even managed to score a few goals. Loreen said her stomach hurt from laughing, watching me and the British girl or the Argentinean chasing the ball at full gallop with me shouting "Feona, vamoose, get up, vamoose". Loreen, who has not been on a horse for probably 10 years took to those English style polo saddles and was racing up and down the polo field with an abandon, but they gave her too short of a polo mallet and even by lying almost on the horses side she had trouble reaching the ball. It was great fun and a great day!

Buenos Aires

December 2nd, in Buenos Aires and it is "caliente" (about 25 degrees Celsius). It was a long flight, four hours to Houston, three hour layover, then another ten hours to BA. Neither of us slept that well on the overnight flight.

Flying into BA we flew over miles and miles of agricultural land. Fields that looked from the air to be larger than the square, one section fields that we see in Canada and the US.

We went through customs and immigration in BA with no problems except for the $75 US entrance fee charged to Canadian citizens. It is called a reciprocal fee to off set the visa fee the Canadian government charges Argentinian travelers.

Pepe, the school's driver, met us at the airport and spoke no English, although he did understand my three words of Spanish enough to correct my fractured pronunciation. The airport is about 30 km from the city centre and it seemed like every 5 kms there is another toll booth on the freeway. At that rate it would cost a couple hundred dollars to drive through Calgary on the Deerfoot.

Then to the host home in downtown BA, which has a population of 13 million, over one quarter of the population of Argentina lives in BA. It is mucho busy. No one at the host home speaks English, so we have some interesting conversations. The hostess explains things in Spanish, we nod our heads and ask questions in English, then we all dig out a dictionary to try and find the words. It all works out, and we all walked over to the Spanish language school where we are enrolled for a two week intensive beginners course. We start Monday.

Our room is in an older building, maybe circa 1920's. A four story walkup and the flat we are in takes up three quarters of the top two floors. The bottom floor was at some point a store of some kind but is now closed. Rooms are many, spacious and when built was probably a very high class home. Twelve foot ceilings, dark wood panelling on the bottom half of the living and sitting rooms and parquet or hardwood flooring throughout.

We have a Castilian style patio off our bedroom with double French doors.

There are 48 barrios or buroughs in BA, we are in the San Telmo area which is full of charm and personality. The guidebooks say it is one of BA's most attractive and historically rich barrios. We went to a little plaza Friday afternoon where there are restaurant patios and artisans selling their products. We had a couple of beer and watched couples who come to the plaza and dance the Tango for donations. I really like watching them dance the tango.

What I learned about the tango. The dance was started in the late 1800's by migrant workers from Europe who were here with no wives or girlfriends, so they visited the local bordellos. While waiting they took to dancing with each other in an aggressive, almost fighting style. As more ladies of the night migrated to Buenos Aires, the migrant workers started dancing with the prostitutes and the tango evolved into a very aggressive sexual dance. Frowned on by the high society of Buenos Aires, the dance was none the less taken up by the sons of the very same families and exported to Europe on their overseas jaunts. Eventually the tango returned to BA and became the refined sensual dance that we see today.

Summer in Calgary

As we pack up our home once more, it is time to reflect on our summer. It was a good summer, spent in Calgary with friends and family. We have really great friends in Calgary and enjoy our time with them. We stayed a couple of weeks in April with Lloyd and Pat and then moved downtown into a 24th floor, two bedroom condo. The views to the mountains and the Bow River were great and it was a nice place to spend the summer. We looked around a bit for a place to purchase, but I guess we need to mature a bit more before settling down again. I mean what can be more exciting than moving into and out of a storage locker twice a year!

Encana employed me on a seven month contract that kept me occupied and out of Loreen's hair, which was good. I call it the Encana Summer Seniors program. I'm lucky to have made some very good workplace friends there. Loreen spent the summer working in administration at a care facility. We are thankful that we are still able to work and that there are places and people that value our contributions.

Keenan moved to Calgary in July and spent three months with us. This is the longest Keenan has been home since she graduated from high school. Remarkably we all have become wiser over the past 12 years and the summer went well. Loreen even managed to sleep when Keenan was out late at night! We are thankful that we could spend this time with her before she ventured off on her next adventure, teaching in the UK. Now it is back to email, weekend phone calls and Skype.

Even with us both working we managed to get out and see all our family at least once over the summer and some of our long distance friends. We also made a trip back to Saskatchewan to meet some of my Dad's cousins. He had around 74 first cousins and I had only ever met one of them. I met with three cousins over coffee at the Co-op in Moose Jaw, how like Dad is that? It was a wonderful experience meeting some of that side of the family.

As we prepare for our next adventure we give thanks to our family, friends, health and having a great country like Canada to return to.

Fall in Auckland, Brrr!

Well it is fall in the Southern Hemisphere. Samoa was in the low thirties, Tonga was around 28 and 29 but Auckland is only 20 above, I am chilly. I think I could be an island boy! We liked New Zealand so much that we changed our plans from a two week stay in Tonga to a 5 day stay and back to New Zealand for another week.

Auckland (a.k.a. the City of Sails), like the rest of New Zealand is a very nice city. We took a day tour on a hop on/hop off bus and seen the points of interest. Auckland is situated on two bays and the distance between the two is only a couple of kilometers. This huge amount of water means a large portion of Aucklander's own some kind of boat and most seem to be sail boats.



Downtown Auckland

 The Auckland Museum is an awesome place, very informative and full of both public and private displays and collections. Approximately half of the first floor is dedicated to Maori history and culture and another large area dedicated to the other South Pacific Islands, the people and cultures. The Maori area consists of artifacts including large transport canoes, made from a single hollowed out log, their type of totem poles, art, weapons, a Maori family home, prior to European influence and their oral history of settling New Zealand. One of the things that surprised me was how closely the Maori art, canoes and family home are to the First Nations of Coastal British Columbia.

We rented a car, now this was different, the car was empty of fuel, (the little warning light was even on) but the rental guy said "oh just bring it back empty". Have you ever tried to estimate how much fuel it needed to get back empty? Quite a science, but we made it, five blocks from the rental agency the little warning light came on and I really had to let the guy know how accurate we were. Actually with fuel costing $2.40 a liter in NZ, I did my utmost to ensure I did not give away any fuel.

We went to two areas where all the Kiwis told us were must go to places for North Island residents.

First Mt. Maunganui, one of the few mountains in NZ that is not an old volcano, a fast growing community with miles of beach and surfer schools. We stayed in a self contained suite where we could cook and took day trips. Mt. Maunganui is about 200 meters to the top, we hiked up it twice, because I forgot my camera the first time, and is a very steep climb. I was amazed to find young guys that were running this thing two or three time, but even more amazed by a lady my age that ran it twice while we went up and down once. The views from the top are quite nice.

Communities of Mt. Maunganui and Papamoa Beach from the summit

Mt Maunganui is one spot where paragliders jump and glide to a beach somewhere.

Warning Sign

Gliders run past that bench and off into thin air!

We took a day trip south along the coast to the communities of Whakatani,(wh in Maori uses the phonetic ph sound), and Matata, which is the Kiwi fruit growing region of NZ. We stopped at the, lonely planet guidebook words not mine, cheesiest tourist place in NZ.



Loreen in the Kiwi!


Kiwi fruit is grown on a vine much the same as grapes and is grown in NZ, Italy and California. The northern hemisphere fruit is in stores in NZ now as the picking season is late April and May. Kiwi fruit is expensive in NZ as the producers grow for the export markets and with no consumer protection, NZ stores have to pay export price for local fruit.

We then drove up island to the town of Whitianga, for the last three days of the trip. Again we took day trips and just looked at the sites around the area.

We went to hot water beach, where there is a huge lava rock on the beach where for about two hours on either side of low tide you can build your own hot pool, hot enough I could only stay in our little pool for about 2 minutes, had to allow the tide water in to keep it cool enough to sit in.

In Hot Water!

We then hiked up the shore to Cathedral Cove, where the soft cliffs have been eroded over the millenniums.

Erosion Art #1

Arch to Cathedral Cove

Erosion Art #2



Erosion Art #3 complete with the Princess!

 Then back to Auckland for the long flight home to Calgary. It has been a great four months, we only got into one fight, I think I had an opinion on something that day! Which is pretty good for living out of a suitcase and sharing the same bathroom for that long. I think Loreen is a keeper!

The Kingdom of Tonga

We flew from Samoa back to NZ and overnighted in Auckland, then from NZ to Tonga, which is number 12 of 16 air flights we will have during this little South soirée. On the flight from Samoa to Auckland it seemed as if the airline had set the seat spacing for a plane load of primary school folk and had not changed back to adult seat spacing. It was sad to watch large men Samoan men trying to get comfortable in that space, but when the fellow in front of Loreen layed his seat back, pandemonium set in. After she set her newspaper on top of his head and then tried to physically remove him and his seat from the airplane, the flight attendant moved us to an emergency exit row for the remainder of the flight.

I am getting cynical of the governments in these impoverished countries, not with the countries, they are beautiful to see, or the people, they are friendly and kind and these islanders have the biggest, nicest smiles. That is what Captain Cook must have thought when he named the Tonga chain of islands the friendly islands, little did he know that the Tonga Tui, head chief, was planning on eating him, but got into an argument with his councilors on whether they would attack at night or day, and while they debated Cook sailed away!
There is a lot of aid money sent here and not much gets to the people or put into infrastructure.

Starfish Art

Tonga is the only South Pacific Island to have never been controlled by foreign power and as such still has a monarchy. The monarchy is hereditary and the current monarch can be traced back for about 1000 years. The King has a town palace and a rural residence, which seems like it is about twice as big as the palace.

Tonga, being the first nation on the west side of the international dateline, is the first place in the world to see the start of a new day and a new year. Tonga consists of 176 islands, of which about 52 are inhabited. We were on the main island of Tongatapu. Unlike other South Pacific Islands, Tonga is not volcanic islands, but are mainly raised coral beds that have been forced to the surface by earthquake upheavals thousands of years ago. The islands have no mountains and even at the highest points are maybe only three to four hundred feet above sea level.

The main town on Tongatapu, Nuku'alofa, is still rebuilding after riots in 2006 when the King went back on a promise to allow a democratic vote and instead appointed the parliament. The citizens burned down most of the town and the King asked for and received soldiers from both Australia and New Zealand to help restore peace. The elections in 2010 went somewhat better, with the public voting in some peoples representatives to the parliament, although the majority of the parliament members are from the nobility, some of which are now under investigation for buying or intimidation to gain votes.

After wandering around the town, market place and harbor area we went to a technical school for lunch. The school is partially funded by CIDA, Canadian International Development Agency, and has a cooking class that serves a potluck lunch every day. Potluck as in you get whatever the cooking instructor has decided to teach that day, we had fresh tuna casserole and coconut rice.

The market was the nicest and cleanest island market that we have visited on this trip, although the fish market in Samoa was very clean and sanitary also.

We went to a traditional Tongan Feast and Show that was quite different. Located on a white sand beach the feast was served on bamboo tables and stools, banana leaf table cloths and plates made from the banana tree. The food was similar to the food in Samoa and the Maori hangi in New Zealand, taro root, chicken, roast suckling pig, lots of salads, etc. The restaurant is joined into a cave system and it was inside the caves where the show took place.

Feast on Banana Tree Plate

Designed around Tongan legend, the show told the story of a Tongan woman that spent days sitting on the shore waiting for her Samoan husband to return from fishing. He never returned and she laid down inside the cave and died. Immediately inside the cave is a water worn rock formation that resembles the upper body and head of a woman laying on her back. The show was awesome, as good or better than any we have seen elsewhere. Unfortunately I could not get my camera to work with the poor lighting inside the cave.

The common thought on the population of the Polynesian Islands is that they were settled by people from South Asia and this is supported by discoveries of ancient pottery that is Asian in design. The polynesians themselves may not necessarily all agree.

The following, and somewhat outrageous statements, are according to our English tour guide (he was quite the character who escaped to the islands from England 22 years ago). Tonga claims to be the cradle of Polynesia and claims all the pacific islands were populated by Tongan people. Our guide says Tonga was populated from the middle east countries of Iraq and Iran, or from that area of the world. He went on to say that the cranky people were expelled and went to New Zealand and became the Maori, the effeminate were expelled to Tahiti, the lazy to Samoa and odd looking people to Fiji and only the best remained in Tonga. Not sure how the other islands would respond to this!

That the islands of Tonga were populated by people from the middle east seems to be supported by religions like the Latter Day Saints, Jehovah Witness and Seven Day Adventist, who are all making big time pushes to replace Methodist and Catholic as the leading religions in Tonga. Again, according to our tour guide, these religious groups believe that Tonga was a chosen land after the floods of Moses and the lost tribe of Israel populated the islands. Therefore, the island of Tonga may become the first Mormon country in the world as the amount of money they are pouring in here is astonishing. On our tour we drove past 36 of 46 new Mormon churches, schools halls, etc. Our guide indicated that as Tonga being the home of the lost tribe of Israel, it and it's people are chosen.

China and Japan are big aid givers to the Islands, with Japan building a new hospital and China rebuilding and paving all the roads. Japan it seems needs the Tonga vote to support their whaling while China likes to get the Tongan vote for support in the UN. China is also building a new hospital in Samoa for the same reasons.

On the island tour we seen all the different types of food grown in Tonga. Cassava, after harvest the tree stem is cut off and cut into two foot lengths, these are simply stuck back into a hole in the cultivated field and six months later you harvest the new cassava. They grow three different types of sweet potato, the largest of which can get up to 50 pounds. There is no weeding of any of the crops, as Western style agriculture has been tried and there was no increase in production and in some cases production went down due to lack of moisture retention in dry seasons. The only thing that looked cultivated was acres and acres of coconut palm that had been spaced out to increase production and assist in gathering. This was a commodity that used to be manufactured into edible products for overseas, but now these islands can not compete with Indonesia and so the huge plantations simply drop the coconut on the ground where the pigs feast on it.
We also seen the blow holes, where the ocean waves explode up through crevices in the coral benches,

Blowholes

 the arch, supposedly the hole created by Saint Patrick when he chased the snakes off Tonga on his way to Ireland,

The Arch

the headlands, the highest points on Tongatapu, but where the waves still can be high and strong enough to wash people off into the ocean,

Standing on the Headlands

and the place where Captain Cook came ashore and feasted on the beach while the Chiefs discussed the best time to capture and cook him.

The most interesting to me was the Ha'amonga Trilithon, known as the Stone Henge of the South Pacific. Erected in 1200AD the Trilithon consists of two - five meter high coral stones, grooved at the top to hold a connecting stone about six meters in length. Each stone weighs between 30 and 40 ton. There are three theories on the reason the King of the time had this erected:

1) It was the entrance to his palace; 2) It was a sign of brotherhood, the two uprights repenting his sons and the lintel connecting them; and 3) Similar to Stone Henge it represented the axis of the longest and shortest days of the year, but most likely it was the entrance to his palace as it faces the stone throne he used.

Trilithon

As it is illegal to work or have any place of business open on a Sunday, the hotel we stayed at had to get a special permit to make an evening meal for their guests, breakfast and lunch they packed a picnic basket the day before, and were not allowed to serve an evening meal to any outside guests.

Our hotel, Little Italy, great place!

So on Sunday we took our picnic basket and headed off to one of the few places in Tonga allowed to conduct business on a Sunday, the Pangaimotu Island Resort, well actually a bar and cafe, with a couple of island shacks for accommodation, located on the island of the same name, about a fifteen minute boat ride from Nuku'alofa. The island has two residences, the resort and one ship wreck that provides good snorkeling. We walked around the island in 30 minutes, had a beer and our lunch and sat on the beach between rains, a very relaxing day.

Pangaimotu Resort, Beach and Wreck

Now back to Auckland for ten more days and then back to Canada.

Rustic Manono

Manono is a small Samoan island, population 1100, and it takes less than 2 hours to walk around the circumference. It is located between the main islands of 'Upolu and Savai'i. After a week at the Tuafua Beach Bungalows, where we had to drive a few minutes each way to get to the beach and back, we thought we would go over to Manona to rest up, before going back into the city of Apia!

Manona was a step into Samoan culture that has not changed much over the years. No wheeled or motorized transportation is allowed, that includes bicycles. Dogs have been abolished, so you can walk throughout the villages without being chased or barked at. Motor boats transport the islanders back and forth to the main island, so you hear them once in while but mostly you just hear the surf and the multitudes of birds and chickens.

There are three pretty basic little accommodation places on the isle, two that have locking closed fales and one that is tarpaulin drop down walls. We stayed at one, Sunset View, that had full walls and a bathroom.

Our fale at Sunset View Fales

It was more like a home stay, as we were the only guests and the family cooked all our meals and always had some one around to visit with us. Loreen made friends with their 2.5 year old grandson, who was comfortable enough to drop his drawers and pee on our steps while visiting. Euan's mom and dad do not live on Manono but run the family store and look after the jetty on the main island. Euan, at two and a half has the motor skills of a much older child and is fully independent in that he just gets on his Uncles boat and goes across the water to his Grandparents when ever he wants to. He is pretty much his own boss!

Euan, Samoan Dancing

We were on Manono when the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan. The Samoan government gave a heads up at 9:30PM and said that if the tsunami got to Samoa it would be about four in the morning. The island of Manono has had a number of tsunamis and the villagers are prepared. As our accommodation was quite high up from the beach, the family did not wake us but moved all their family from the beach up to where we were staying. They had one of the sons stay overnight at the jetty to monitor the ocean tides.

We found out at breakfast the next morning and by then all warnings had been removed. We walked around the island and the tide on the north shore had been higher than usual that morning, not extreme, but a couple of feet higher. They cancelled school as a cautionary measure and no fisherman went out, mainly because there was no low tide at all during the day. Loreen and I went out to the reef snorkeling, usually a pleasant experience, but the outgoing tide was so high and so strong that we got into a bit of trouble. We would look at where the boat was anchored and then leisurely swim towards it only to look up and find it was further away, as the tide was taking us out faster than we were swimming to the boat. I had to get down and dirty and swim with maximum kick and stroke to get back to the boat. I got some salt water in my snorkel and when I cleared it, Loreen heard the air explosion and thought I was in trouble so she quit swimming and hollered for the boat to quit moving away and come pick us up. The tide had drifted the boat so tight into the anchor the young fellow could not pull the anchor and threw out a rescue rope to Loreen and pulled her in. I had checked her a couple of times while swimming in and thought she was okay, but she was scared for me and thought the boat driver was jerking around. In retrospect we should probably have just stayed on shore that day. Hopefully she will snorkel with me again!

We actually had to power up the boat and pull away from the anchor to finally dislodge it, it was dragged in so hard.

They cooked traditional Samoan meals, vegetable soups, taro or breadfruit (the Samoan potato) and fish and did a special "umu", the traditional cooking with lava rock for us. We were invited to the outdoor kitchen and took part in the total preparation from building the fire to taking out the food. The process was all above ground, and consisted of heating lava rock to red hot, and then putting all the food on top of the rocks, the food was then covered with a second layer of hot rock and buried under banana leaf. Forty minutes later out came breadfruit, banana, taro leaf in coconut cream, and reef fish. We are not sure how traditional the lunch was one day as it was toasted bread and canned spaghetti sandwiches - which was a bit of a novelty.

Umu

As part of the preparation fresh coconut is grated out of the shell, I attempted this and did not too bad, Moses the umu man had told me it would take me all day, it took me about five minutes, so he said that it was a soft coconut! Then the grated coconut flakes are squeezed through coconut husk fibre to extract a sweet coconut cream for some of the dishes.

Coconut Cream

The meal was lovely, and we were the only ones there to eat it as Leota, Sau and family never eat the evening meal until well after evening prayer.

Umu meal

During the walk around the island we seen both the old Samoan culture and the new.

The old: we stopped a man on the path and asked him how to get to the grave of Afutiti, a king that was buried standing up on the highest point to guard the island. Right away he said he would take us, he just needed to take his basket of scraps to his pigs and then he would lead us to the trail head. We stressed we had no money with us to pay him and he smiled, nodded and off he went to feed his pigs. As the trail head started at a fenced in pig pen that we had to go through we decided we would not attempt to climb up to the grave and started back the way we had come. Within ten steps we heard Fiatalia holler at us and motion us to follow him. Again we stressed we had no money to pay and all he said was, "no money, you come" so away we went. He led us up the mountain through the pig pen, through his banana plantation, showed us his shelter from the 2009 tsunami and finally we reached the grave site. After some pictures and a bit of a rest we struck out back down the mountain. As we had drained the last of our water at the grave site, when we reached his land again, up a coconut tree he went, dropped some green coconuts and provided us with the sweetest, best tasting coconut we have drank. Samoans, like most other South Pacific Islanders, use coconut water to quench their thirst before using regular water. So after an hour of his day and a lesson in Samoan botany we told him if he came to our fale where we were staying we would give him some money, he said "no money, you are my new friend".

Fiatalia

The new: later on the walk we were joined by a young bandit, about ten to twelve, that just joined us unbidden, he showed us his school, his church, damage from the last tsunami around the village and we thought "what a nice kid". then, when we got close to the store he asked, "take my picture", so I did. After I showed him the picture, he said one more and ran out the blade on his box cutter and posed. When I showed him this second picture he was pleased, said it was good and then asked for ten tala (this being extra outrageous when you consider the average wage is 2 tala per hour!) We did not pay and I guess we could have got him in trouble as the village chiefs do not allow this and everything you read in Samoa requests that visitors do not give money or sweets to children. This is really the only place we had this happen in Samoa, and this on an island where the churches all signal the evening prayer at eight in the evening and no matter where you are you can not move until they signal the prayer is over (in about 15 minutes).

The Bandit

Returning from Manono to the main island, where the family owns the jetty and store, Loreen got big hugs from Euan, enough to bring a small tear or two, and then back to Apia for a couple of days before going to Tonga.

Leaving Manono with Jay our boat captain

Samoan Sunset