This One's Goin' out to the Fans!

Finally, we have returned. It was a relief to step off the plane and plant our feet on Australian soil again. And just to please the punters, we made sure that the last leg of our journey was no walk in the park. We couldn't finish this story without a final chapter of travel trouble now, could we?

Uruguay was a lot of fun. It was nice to spend time hanging out with Andrea's family. She had a chance to catch up on the ten years that had passed since her last visit, and Dennis got to meet the people he had been hearing stories about for years. We both enjoyed spending time sitting around the nice, warm fireplace in the loungeroom, swapping stories and eating 'dulce de leche' (caramelised sweetened condensed milk - YUMMM!!!) while the freezing weather was locked outside. We also spent two cold, but sunny, days at the family farm in Durazno, central Uruguay. It was fun to see where her mum's family grew up, and we especially enjoyed all the hilarious stories about Ines (Andrea's mum) and how naughty she was as a little girl. Apart from the incident where we were taken advantage of by a crazy, uncooperative horse, we had a great time. Stupid horse. After almost a week, we said our teary goodbyes to the family and started the return leg of our journey.

Friday night and the city dwellers in Montevideo were getting ready to party the night away. Not us. We left Uruguay and headed for Argentina on a ferry. When we arrived, we headed straight to the airport where we spent the night, before flying to Chile. We waited at Santiago airport for our 14 hour layover to end. That really hurt. We were delighted to hear that our flight had been delayed for two hours, and became almost ecstatic when we were finally allowed to board the aircraft, only to be informed by the pilot that there was a problem with the landing gear. This shouldn't have been a problem, except for the fact that we were 5000 feet in the air when the announcement was made. We spent an hour dumping fuel before landing safely back at our starting point. Santiago airport.....again. It's nice but not that nice. Eventually we reached Auckland before starting the final leg of our lap of the world. Sydney was showing on the navigation channel.

It was somewhat of a relief to step off the plane after spending 54 hours travelling without being able to wash our stinky bodies (and Dennis' feet) or brush our teeth because of the ever-tightening travel security that is hitting airports worldwide. We both felt like we'd run four marathons as we left customs and re-entered the land we love most. We expected cameras, waving, screaming fans, banners and more. It seems though, that our blog was not quite as big a hit with the public as we thought it had been. Rent-a-Crowd could have made a killing if they had a branch at the airport! We sat down and tried to figure out our lack of popularity. Then it clicked! Our return to Australia had been overshadowed by the unfortunate deaths of Steve Irwin and Peter Brock. The country was obviously in mourning.

So, we dragged our weary bodies home to Strathfield. Home, sweet home. And here we plan to stay at least until the New Year. No more blog, we guess... well, until our next mis/adventure anyway! It has been a blast.

So before we go and settle into life in the big smoke, with work and bills and responsibility and all the other junk that constitutes life in 'The Real World' (whatever that is!), we would like to thank all of our supporters, our detractors, the weird guy who warned us about the dangers of the Moroccan desert... there are so many other weirdo's to mention. Tim and Treen for getting this whole blog-thing started. Harves and Rach for keeping us updated on the weekly scores and happenings in The Hill. Dave and Peg for keeping Gran in touch with our adventures. Kel and Gav for looking after the mutt. Kris and Al for looking after our gear. Carlos and Ines for spreading the glorious word of the blog to any stranger they could corner. To everyone who logged on or left a comment, housed, clothed or fed us, thank you all very much. This blog has been one of the best memories we have of our trip. We have had so much fun putting it together. It was such a common experience to be standing, awestruck by some wonderful sight, and finding ourselves thinking of how we would explain it on the blog. What pictures would we put on? What was the title going to be? It became a bit of an addiction for us. Thank you all for keeping in touch. We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have.

We hope to catch up with you all soon, and hope that everyone is well. Don't be afraid to drop in or contact us, we'd love to see you.


Dennis and Andrea.

THE END

Plans

There are some things in life that just don't go to plan. For example, before leaving to travel, Dennis planned to change his underpants at least once a week. But that just didn't happen. Andrea planned not to eat every sweet in sight. But that didn't happen either. Neither of us planned to have a family member fall ill. That's the one thing that did happen. Some things just never go to plan.
We are writing this entry from Uruguay, South America, the land of Andrea's forefathers. We are just paying her family a quick visit before heading home to Australia. Unfortunately, Andrea's father has suffered a stroke and we have decided to come home to be by his side. So those of you who have been pining for us for the last 8 months, pine no longer. If all goes to plan (that's an IF!) we will be returning to Sydney by the end of the week. We can't wait to get back and see everybody.

It has been a while since our last update, so in short, here it is. We left Egypt and returned to Madrid, where we spent a few days with a family friend of Andrea's. Amelia, Luciano and Rebeka provided us with a home away from home, which was what we needed after the madness of Egypt.


We then bussed it to gay-Paris to soak up the sights of the world's sexiest city. We sipped hot coffee along the Champs Elysee, watched a Parisian sunset from atop of the Eiffel Tower, strolled along the River Seine, trudged through the Catacombs, and we visited the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. The only thing missing was 'Pepe Le Peu'. While in France, we took the chance to visit another of Andrea's family members. We hired a car and drove out to Brest, Brittany. Wild weather and wild times awaited us as we hung out with the 'energetic' Anahi and her husband Regis. It was a very cool weekend!






When we returned to Paris, we'd made the decision to make our way home to Australia ASAP. That is when our own race-around-the-world began. From Paris we caught a 10 hour overnight bus to London where not a minute of sleep was had. We lost count of the number of times that we were ordered on and off the bus for customs and ferry crossings and whatever else was going on. Arriving in London, we dropped our bags off at Andrea's cousins place and paid a visit to the airport to organise flights home to Oz. The only flight available to us left that afternoon in 4 hours' time. We had to cross London twice in that time with our bags, and in peak hour. Joy! We made it to the plane and caught our 16 hour flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. From there we had to get to Argentina's port to catch a ferry across to Uruguay. 49 hours after we'd left Paris, Andrea's aunty Gladys was a sight for sore eyes.


We've spent the last few days in Montevideo freezing our extremities off. So much for the Latin heat! We are catching up with family and friends, and gorging on the meat and sweets, before returning home.

We'll see you soon!

Happy Birthday to Genti. We tried calling but you but no one was home. We'll call you soon and we love you.