The Electric (Tour) Company

According to hundreds of reviews posted on TripAdvisor.com, touring San Francisco is best done on a Segway. Until recently, Segway tours offered by 2 different companies hogged the top 2 spots on the rankings of recommended activities in San Francisco. This month, a guided walking tour bumped the Segway guys down to 2nd and 3rd place.

Well these walkers probably had no clue what they lost out on in San Francisco by choosing to pump their legs instead of zipping around on a Segway, besides maybe a few hundred more burnt calories than us wheelies.

Not to say that tackling those infamously steep Frisco slopes isn't fun. It is - for one's first day in the city, when we went without a car in SF earlier this year. After that, we started noting which way the slopes rolled and planned our walking route around avoiding the uphill climbs. This time, on our second visit to SF, we wanted to see more of the city - on a set of wheels.

While the cost of renting a car within SF isn't expensive, parking in the city is a bi*ch. Multi-storey carparks (or garages, as they are called in the US) are few and far between. Curbside parking spaces are limited and leaving our car lurching at a 45-degree angle for hours at a stretch is rather worrisome. So is not having enough coins to feed the greedy metres which gobble up to US$1 for every 15 minutes.

Forking out US$70 each for a Segway tour isn't cheap either but the rave online reviews convinced us to give it a go. Traveling is all about discovering new experiences and given the limited authorised usage of Segways in Singapore, it would be our first time on one. I think you can now sample a ride on a Segway within the confines of a building in Singapore, but we're a long way from seeing tourists zipping around on these neat machines alongside vehicular traffic down Orchard Road.

Morning Rush

We woke up bright and chirpy, hopped onto the 'F'-line streetcar to Beach Street, only see a guide on a Segway trundle out of the tour office and down the road, with a lone tourist on her (w)heels. We had arrived 10 minutes too late and had missed the morning tour! Since the tour company only ran 1 daily tour in winter (as compared to 2 tours a day in summer), we had missed the boat for good.

The nice owner pointed us to another tour company offering a similar city tour on wheels. We practically ran over to the office and found the morning's participants already decked in safety vests and helmets and in the midst of the briefing. Argggh. Too late again! Thankfully, this second tour company offered afternoon tours and we promptly signed up for the 1pm ride.

So in the meantime....

A hot fudge sundae for lunch!

As with our first sundae experience at Ghirardelli Square last year, the ice-cream and chocolate samples were really good. One tip though: stick to the plain ol' sundae with milk chocolate fudge. I love dark chocolate but the fudge tasted strangely sour. And lay off the incredibly salty peanut butter. Sour and salty are not great flavours for a sundae.

Back at The Electric Tour Company, 1pm:

The Electric Tour Company offers electric bike tours over the Golden Gate Bridge as well as Segway tours in San Francisco and Sausalito. The name reminds me of this television series for children in the 1970s and 1980s - The Electric Company, which I loved watching after I got home from school. Some of you may remember it:



Participants have to attend a safety and introductory briefing before being allowed anywhere near the machines. After that, we are assigned our wheels and taught how to operate the controls, mount and dismount the Segway safely, how to accelerate, steer, brake and stop, etc. We putted across the parking lot at 'training speed' - 10mph (16km/h) - slaloming through tiny orange cones.

No training wheels - just training mode

So is the Segway a dangerous machine?

Well, as with any bicycle or motorised vehicle, the Segway on its own is probably less dangerous than a horse, given that it can't go anywhere by itself without a driver. But under conditions of misuse, horseplay or inconsiderate riding, yeah, somebody could get hurt pretty badly. The directional handle bar is highly sensitive to movement, so tilting it too far and too suddenly in either direction could send your Segway into a crazy whirring spin. And just like cycling or in-line skating, you cannot let the wheels of your machine touch that of another machine while in motion. One lady did just that. She sent her Segway tripping in 1001 different directions at once and fell right off it.

With our guide convinced that we all had our Segways under control, he took us out of training mode with a few jabs at our control panels and raised the maximum speed limit to 16mph. We filed up in pairs, forming a Segway convoy and hit the road alongside cars, trams and buses.

Each individual Segway is equipped with a walkie talkie. The guide speaks into his set and we get a wonderful introduction to San Francisco as we had never known it before - quirky stories about the residents of Little Italy, the woman whom Coit Tower was named after, the best restaurants and pubs in town and an overview of the architecture around us. The guide brought us to a swimming area at Fisherman's Wharf and showed us a crazy Irish man languidly doing the backstroke in the freezing water. We expertly navigated gentle slopes and pedestrian crossings, and avoided potholes like plague. One place we weren't allowed to go was Lombard Street - the crookedest street in the world. That is for the Advanced Segway Tour. Serious!

Terrorising the city on wheels is much more fun than on foot!

Stopping for a break at Washington Park

Being left to run amok up and down a pier at Fisherman's Wharf

We created quite a spectacle on the streets of SF. Tourists snapped photos of us. Cars slowed down for the people inside to gape at us. We waved and posed for photos and felt like mini-celebrities for the day!

This guy, however, was not impressed

I wish...

I wish we had Segway tours in Singapore! In SF, anybody can buy a Segway to ride about town. Anybody who has about US$30,000 to spare, that is. But seeing how I can't even blade down the designated cyclist/skater track along East Coast Park in SG without requesting that people keep to their lanes and yelling at walking mobs to move over to the pedestrian path instead of strolling four abreast in the face of bikes and skates, I'm not too excited at the thought of dodging errant Segways anywhere on this island. However, guided tours where users are briefed on how to operate these wheeled machines in a controlled environment would raise the bar for fun city tours in Singapore.

If we do eventually get Segway tours in SG, just remember, for goodness sake, not to ride in the park (note somebody's sheepish look in the clip):

Hot Rocks!

From Brazil, we took our first ever flight in South America on Taca Airlines - only to leave the continent. Actually it was a 3-in-1 flight that took us from Rio de Janeiro back to Lima, then to San Salvador and finally to Guatemala City, changing planes at each stop. It got a bit nerve-wrecking in mid-journey when our flight departing Lima was delayed, causing us to miss our connection in San Salvador to Guatemala. Or so we thought. We were incredibly relieved to find our plane still waiting at the gate for passengers who had been delayed by their previous flights.

Didn't we just spend six leisurely months wandering around South America? So why the rush to get to Guatemala on time?

We had given ourselves only 3 days to visit Guatemala before our flight back to the USA on Christmas Eve: 1 day to get to Vulcan Pacaya, 1 day to scale the volcano, 1 day to get back to the airport for our flight to Miami. We wanted to complete all our air travel before the super peak Christmas-to-New-Year period.

We had first heard about scaling Pacaya from a German traveler whom we had dinner with in Colombia sometime in August. Her tales about leaping across a river of glowing lava (which, as we discovered later on the trek, was probably an exaggeration) and watching other tourists' Crocs sandals melt before her eyes convinced us not to give Guatemala a miss - if only to scale this active volcano.

Pacaya may be about 23,000 years old but is very much still alive and kicking. And erupting. It may not be spewing its red hot molten guts too often nowadays, but the volcano still coughs up the occasional lungful of ash, plentiful enough to shower the nearest city, Antigua, in black dust.

Having discovered how my body reacts to climbing a mountain while in Peru last year, I was understandably nervous about climbing yet another one, be it snow-capped or on fire. I trawled online reviews and climbers' accounts of their Pacaya experience. Many related how difficult the climb was despite them being young and having an above-average level of fitness.

For one, the thick layer of ash blanketing the path made taking each step akin to walking in quicksand. One step forward, 2 steps back.

Secondly, climbers who chose to stay for views of sunset atop the peak spoke of how tricky and dangerous the descent in the dark was.

Next, I read about how some people lost their footing and had either ripped their skin open on the sharp lava rocks or suffered third-degree burns from landing on the burning ground. Gulp.

Then, it didn't help that our hosts in Guatemala City - just before they saw us off on a van to Antigua (the most popular base for trips up Pacaya) - mentioned that previous guests have had their shoes torn to shreds on the trek.

So I formulated a simple battle plan: rent walking sticks for the hike to help me keep my balance on the soft ash and sharp rocks; choose a morning ascent and complete the descent before sundown; and set aside money for new shoes.

I was relieved to hear that tired trekkers could hire "horse taxis" to help them scale the mountain. But given my dubious horse-riding skills on the trek in Peru and on our horse-riding excursion in Mendoza, I was highly aware how uncomfortably butt-aching a four-legged cab ride up and down the volcano would be. Besides, it's really wimpy to have an animal plod about on your behalf while everyone else is walking up, isn't it? Oh my pride, my pride.

On the very morning that we left Guatemala City for Antigua, our van driver advised us to choose the afternoon ascent over the morning climb, as the glow of the lava was more prominent after sundown. I was really not prepared to be told at 10am that I would be climbing a volcano at 2pm that same day!

We went anyway.

I had to admit, it was a beautiful day to be outdoors.

Perfect day for a walk in the park. Or on an active volcano.

The path started out gradual and fairly firm to touch, but quickly transformed into slippery ash-covered slopes. I found it easier to bound lightly across the powdery surface, moving quickly down the path before giving the loosely-packed dirt a chance to crumble under my weight.

A note of warning to those attempting the hike: taking the road less traveled here is not a good idea. Stick to the well-beaten path. A couple of smarty-pants hikers decided to take shortcuts across the slopes where no one else was treading. Their foolish attempts sent large loose rocks hurtling downhill and would have hit unsuspecting climbers quite painfully if not for other alert tourists and guides who yelled "watch out!", just in time for the human targets to jump out of the way of the oncoming rocks.

Can't make it up on your own? Hire a horse-taxi. (Wimp!)

My personal mule service carrying our pack and water-bottles so that I could climb unhindered. I only needed to carry my own camera.

As we neared the summit, we could feel the ground burning up through the soles of our shoes. Treading cautiously along the banks of the lava rivers, the heat on my feet became unbearable, forcing me to back away from the glowing rock. Amazingly, our shoes held up despite the intense heat. I think Nike and Adidas deserve some credit here for their volcano-proof soles.

It was incredibly surreal being so close to molten lava and watching the viscous red ribbon of glowing liquid rock snake through the cracks in the craggy black face of the mountain. If you got close enough to peer through the crevices, you could see flames licking hungrily at the air (and errant fingers) near the surface.

Happy to have made it to the summit. Happier still to be standing side by side with lava rivers!

A must-do on the volcano - roast marshmallows over the hot rock! Honestly, the best marshmallow I've ever tasted. Some people made popcorn too!

Watching sunset atop the peak was a magical experience.

Worth the climb. Totally worth the climb.

Then, the sea of tourists parted as the fire goddesses appeared - a couple of tourists in our group who performed a fire dance before the setting sun.

Head and pois lowered in a respectful commencement to the dance

An offering to the sun, sky, clouds and mountains

Hula-ing with finesse

A dance fit for the gods

Lights out!

Fire-mountains, a fiery sunset, lava rivers, flame-toasted marshmallows, fire goddesses performing an enthralling dance offering - our first volcano experience could not have been more complete.

Fire in the sky

Oh, the descent back to our waiting van was a piece of cake too. We just had to buy a torch to combat the darkness. Duh!

The Marvelous City

Rio de Janeiro truly deserves the title of The Marvelous City.

The name Rio de Janeiro, meaning River of January, was given by the city's Portuguese founders, who sailed into Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502 and mistook it for the delta of a huge river.

The sprawling metropolis is home to rolling hills, tropical rainforest, samba parties, bossa nova, shiny modern buildings, favelas (slums, preferably referred to as poor urban neighbourhoods nowadays), world-famous landmarks and of course, the beautiful Copacabana and Ipanema beaches lined with beautiful bodies. Rio is also home to 14 million people (the population of Brazil is estimated to be a whopping 196 million, the 5th largest after China, India, USA and Indonesia.)

But Rio's bad reputation for crime, drugs and violence precedes it's less famous moniker of La Ciudad Maravillosa. Anticipating limited seats and sky-high airfares over the Christmas and New Year period, we had bought our flights departing from Rio for Guatemala City in October. A few days later, we read news of people being killed on the streets as a result of violent acts, which involved the gunning down of a police helicopter and buses being set aflame. This came just days after Rio was awarded the opportunity to host the 2016 Olympic Games. We realised too late that maybe, it was a very very bad decision to fly out from Rio.

We were seriously concerned whether we would make it out of Rio alive. We asked every traveller we met on the road whether they had been to Rio, and whether it was safe to go to. We received mixed reviews. Some scoffed and said that Rio was like any other city in South America - no more dangerous, no less dangerous. Others admitted that they didn't feel very secure walking the city streets.

Chewing nervously on our fingernails, we prepared ourselves the best we could by:

1. Timing our arrival in Rio for noon, which would give us plenty of time to locate our hostel in broad daylight;

2. Conducting thorough online research on the safest areas in the city to stay;

3. Booking a room at Rio Dolphin Inn, a guesthouse located right in Ipanema, reputedly one of the safest places to be in Rio. Previous guests also mentioned in their online reviews on Tripadvisor that they felt safe staying at the guesthouse and walking the area around it;

4. Checking with the guesthouse owner prior to our arrival on the best way to get from the bus terminal to the guesthouse and the expected taxi fare for the trip;

5. Copying down word for word the description of the location of the guesthouse in Portuguese, as dictated by the owner, on a slip of paper, which we would hand to the taxi driver upon arrival at the Rio bus terminal.

Unfortunately, we didn't expect the 18-hour bus ride from Florianopolis to turn into a 30-hour nightmare due to flooded roads and traffic gridlocks. We arrived in Rio just past midnight - thus screwing up Precaution No.1 big time.

The taxi driver dropped us off at the given address in the rain. It turned out to be a cluster of houses behind a securely-locked iron gate. I realised that I had forgotten to note down the unit number of our guesthouse. Staring at the intercom device with house numbers from 1 to 12, I hazarded a guess and hit a number, only to be told by the voice emitting from the speakers, that there was no such unit known as Rio Dophin Inn and to try the hostel next door instead.

Dragging our bags and the taxi driver along with us (whom we refused to pay until we confirmed that he had dropped us off at the correct place), we found out that the said hostel was Arpoador Beach House - not Rio Dolphin Inn. We asked if we could use their computer to search online for the phone number of Rio Dophin Inn, so that we could ask the owner of the inn for assistance. A large unsmiling lady who appeared to run the place refused to let us even step beyond the gate unless we paid 80 Reals (S$64) for a room at her hostel.

It was 1 am.

It was dark.

It was raining.

In a city famous for crime and violence.

Things were happening in a language that we couldn't understand, much less speak.

Dan's foot was swollen and hurting from a mild gout attack.

The cab driver was insisting that we just stay at the (wrong) hostel and kept demanding for payment.

Our bags were still in the cab.

The only English-speaking staff at the hostel was chiding us for stupidly paying a US$330 deposit in advance for our room at Rio Dolphin, which we were now going to lose, especially since the place might not even exist.

The fat unsmiling lady was threatening to close the door on us and leave us out on the street.

This was our welcome to the so-called Marvelous City. Hip.Hip.Hooray.

Left with no other choice, we resignedly agreed to pay for a night at Arpoador Beach House. I insisted on borrowing their phone to call John and Nina, our hosts at Rio Dolphin (who had been so warm and friendly over email), to inform them that we would not be turning up that night, lest they wait up the whole night for us. A friendly staff, afraid that Fat Unsmiling Lady would skin him alive for letting us use the hostel phone, called Rio Dophin from his personal cellphone.

In less than 3 minutes, John from Rio Dophin arrived at Arpoador Beach House to collect us. We explained our plight and he marched up to the counter and berated Fat Unsmiling Lady (who was hiding behind the wall while letting her poor staff front the situation) for her utterly inhospitable attitude towards visitors to her city. She insisted that we were now her guests as we had filled up the registration form (as if we had any choice! Thankfully, I used fake particulars) and wanted to charge us 80 Reals, whether we were staying or not. I asked if we could just pay for the use of the computer. Yes, she said - 80 Reals.

After more heated exchanges in Portuguese, we escaped from the clutches of Arpoador Beach House after paying 10 Reals (S$8!!!) for 1 minute on their computer, and hurriedly trotted out behind John our saviour, and over to Rio Dophin next door.

Frayed nerves soothed over glasses of grape juice which John kindly offered, we were shown to our room. It felt as if we had emerged from a trying 30-hour ordeal and into heaven.

Before this, I had never thought of heaven in the form of a cosy little room

Over lunch the next day, John and Nina answered our questions about Rio and allayed our fears about safety (or the lack of it) in the city. Walking around Ipanema with John on an orientation to the neighbourhood, I was surprised and relieved to find that it was no different from being in Holland Village or Tanjong Pagar at lunch time back in Singapore. I felt safe enough to dump Dan at the guesthouse for the rest of the day to recover from his gout and check out the bikini shops on my own. But he said no - I wasn't going anywhere by myself, and especially not in Rio, or my dad might kill him. *pout* We compromised by taking a slow walk along the shops later that day, en route to the only Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet we know of in Rio. Guess who was a happy lame boy that day.

Gradually, over the following week, we discovered sides of Rio that we really loved:

People we interacted with on the street and in shops were generally very friendly, even though we can't speak much Portuguese apart from "bom dia" (good day) and "obrigado" (thank you). Given the similarities between the Spanish and Portuguese languages, they tried hard to understand our half-baked Spanish and converse with us on our level.

The food, although expensive in comparison to food in Singapore, was varied and generally very good. Fruit juice stands dotted every street corner, and like those back home, offered just about every tropical juice available - sugarcane, pineapple, watermelon, banana, guava, etc. In addition, there was whole list of strange Amazonian fruits that were totally foreign to us. We tried suco de caju (juice of the cashew fruit - whose stems we are more familiar with as "cashew nuts") but decided that we liked acai (ah-sa-yee) - a type of palm fruit - better.

We loved the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches and the iconic black-and-white mosaic sidewalk running down the length of the waterfront. So much so that we are dedicating an entire blog entry to the beaches of Rio (see later post.)

Even the scary slums encroaching every hill slope seemed less scary after we did a favela tour (details and photos coming soon!)

Rio has beautiful weather. The average monthly high ranges from 27 degrees Celcius in July to 33 degrees in February, and it never gets cold. To us, who hate the fuss of layering and feel bogged down by heavy winter wear, we felt right at home walking around in singlets, shorts and flipflops.

We took advantage of a rare sunny day (it was abnormally rainy while we were there) and signed up for a half-day city tour.

View of a favela while driving up Corcovado hill to see Christ the Redeemer

From the platform of the Christ statue, we had wonderful views of the city (for more photos of the Christ statue, see later post.)

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas - the lake where rowing and canoeing events will be held for the 2016 Olympic Games. Beyond that is Ipanema beach.

From left to right: Guanabara Bay, the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain and Copacabana beach. Marathon swimming, triathlon and beach volleyball events will be held Copacabana for the 2016 Olympic Games.

We visited the Maracana Stadium as well. While Dan and I are not football fans, it was pretty exciting being in a place which played a part in creating World Cup history. The Maracana was completed in 1950 and hosted the 4th World Cup in the same year. Brazil met Uruguay on home turf in the final match, but failed to maintain a draw to win the world championship, shocking the 200,000 spectators cramped into the stadium to tears. Renovated in 2007, the stadium now seats 88,000 people. It will host the World Cup again in 2014, as well as the football finals and opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games.

Non-footballing events are held there too, with past performances by Sting and Madonna, and Beyonce is due to perform there as part of Carnaval celebrations in February 2010!

The Maracana Stadium, as seen from helicopter (guess who was the lucky man who went up!)

Taking photos and eating ice-cream outside the stadium, cos we didn't want to pay 20 Reals (S$16) each to go onto the pitch.

Basking in the presence of famous footballers

GGGGGOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL *yell continuously for 30 seconds without taking a breath* (that's how commentators here do it)

Next stop - the Sambadrome, venue for Brazil's famous Carnaval parade every February. Built in 1984, this 700m worth of seating galleries can hold 90,000 spectators.

Aspiring samba dancer... real sexy eh.

Imagining a standing ovation for our couple dance

Now, imagine a cathedral built in the shape of a pyramid. Okay... no need to work that imagination, just scroll down....

It exists!

Called the Catedral Metropolitana or Catedral de Sao Sebastiao (after Rio's patron saint, Saint Sebastian), the ultra-modern building was completed in 1979 to criticisms that well, it didn't look at all like a traditional cathedral. But any naysayers were soon won over by the oddly-shaped sanctuary bathed in natural light streaming in from hundreds of windows and the 4 floor-to-ceiling stained glass windows. 20,000 people can fit, standing, in the 75m-high cone.

Beautifully, naturally lit

The 4 stained glass windows stretch high up to meet at the cross-shaped apex

Light & Shadow

Happy with our visit to so many of the city's icons in one morning, we zipped off to Rio Sul, one of the bigger shopping malls in the city. Brazil is amazingly modern in many aspects. Compared to its South American neighbours, it has the best paved roads that we have experienced on this continent. Cross-country travel is facilitated by comfortable double-decker buses, fitted out with free WiFi (but whether the WiFi actually works or not is another issue altogether.) All public toilets are equipped with toilet paper (hooray!) I felt like a silly country bumpkin bringing my personal toilet roll (a necessity in all other countries in South America) around in Brazil.

Together with Leblon Shopping, Rio Sul is the most modern indoor shopping mall that we have been to in South America and both malls are on par with many of Singapore's shopping centres - clean, air-conditioned, presence of departmental stores and brand-name fashion outlets, cineplexes, foodcourt, etc. We spent a rainy Sunday afternoon at Leblon taking in the Christmas decorations and jingles, window shopping, exploring the food court and just basking in the festive atmosphere and air-conditioned comfort. We even caught 2012 on big screen - popcorn and all! It was our first visit to a cinema in 9 months. I had apparently forgotten how to slip a huge cup of Coke back into the cup-holder positioned on the arm-rest after sipping from the straw - and spilled a good part of the icy contents of the fat 1-litre cup onto Dan's lap. Ooops.

However, our malls back home are no match for Rio's when it comes to one aspect - toilets. Here, there are 4 types of restrooms - Gents, Ladies, Family (where parent-child pairs of mix gender can enter) and Baby (equipped with changing tables.) The Ladies restroom (which, of course, was the only one I visited) was incredibly clean. The floors and sink counters were dry; the liquid soap dispensers actually had soap in them and worked; toilet paper, paper towels and electric hand-dryers were provided; and best of all - it didn't stink. There was even a waiting area comprising a small couch and a couple of arm chairs in the restroom - something I've only seen back home in the restrooms at Changi Airport Terminal 3 and swanky hotels. Unless the standard of restrooms in Singapore shopping malls has been raised with the birth of Somerset 313 and Ion Orchard (which I have yet to visit), I'll still be trying my darnedest to avoid visiting public toilets back home.

A big Christmas tree at Leblon Shopping standing in for the whole of Orchard Road for us this year

Despite our initial impressions of Rio de Janeiro and the nasty introduction to the city, through our hosts' assurances and our own interaction with the people and places here, we have come to love Rio and all the wonders that The Marvelous City has too offer.

P.S. We have yet to see any flaming buses on the streets *cross fingers* Regarding the incidents of buses being set alight in October, John told us that the arson was carried out by rebels with a heart. They had waited until the bus reached its final destination and for all the passengers (and the driver) to alight before setting the empty bus afire. That actually sounded really comforting to us!

I Just Snow We'll Have A Good Time

So now that we had reached the end of the world, what were we actually going to do here? We poured over a handful of tour brochures in a bid to find out more about activities in Ushuaia. Agencies in town proffered cruises along the Beagle Channel, mailing a postcard home from the southernmost letter box, trekking in the Tierra del Fuego national park, kayaking in glacial lakes, horseback riding.... SO many things to do out here. We narrowed the list down to 2 choices - both of which we had yet to experience on this trip:

(1) beaver-watching

(2) a full-day tour comprising riding in a 4WD jeep through the forest and into a lake, followed by a traditional Argentinian asado or barbecue on the lakeshore, and then canoeing.

I thought it would be interesting to watch beavers pottering around their dams, gnawing at trees and patting down mud with their flat tails. I've always thought they were cute. A few years back when I first entered university, (okay, so it was more than a decade ago... my math isn't that bad, it's just that time really flies!) ICQ was just gaining popularity and I signed up for an account (for the benefit our really young blog-readers, ICQ is an online chat programme that has since been overtaken by MSN, Gmail and Facebook chats.)

I innocently decided on AngryBeaver, the title of my favourite cartoon The Angry Beavers, as my ICQ nickname. It was only after I had added alot of new classmates from school and neighbours from Temasek Hall to my contact list, did someone finally decide to kindly enlighten me on the pornographic and unsavoury meaning of the word "beaver". I don't want to imagine the nature of the thoughts conjured in the minds of my new male friends as they chatted online with the Angry Beaver late into the night.

Well, the tour agent offering beaver-watching was honest enough to warn us that there was a low chance of spotting these creatures at work in the daytime, as beavers are nocturnal and only go about their busy business at *ahem* night. Bummer. I had really wanted to see some giant beavers. The beavers in Ushuaia are reportedly huge - 1.5m long and weighing up to 60kg - double the size of beavers found elsewhere, which average around the size of a microwave oven. Beavers from Canada were introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the 1946 in a bid to breed them for their fur. Unfortunately, the fur provided insufficient protection against the island's harsh climate, turning hard in the freezing temperatures. Without any natural predators, the original founding stock of 25 male and 25 female beavers ballooned into an unmanageable population of close to 100,000. They are considered a pest on the island, cos they dam up the rivers and flood the forest floor, drowning tree roots and killing acres of forests. Beavers apparently taste quite bad, so the island's inhabitants (man and animals alike) are unwilling to hunt them for food.

We accepted that we weren't going to see any beavers in the forests or on the menu and thus signed up for the second option. At 340 Argentinian pesos (USD85 per person), the tour wasn't cheap but it was still immensely popular and almost fully booked. We managed to get the last 2 spots for a tour leaving a day later.

Dan has created a wonderful video documenting the day's activities at the end of this post, so I'm not going to write too much about the tour. Just a few photos to summarise the itinerary:

First up: a visit to the sledding park to kick off the morning. Dog-sledding only takes place in winter when there's lots of snow (really now... then what's all that white stuff around us?) Outside of the ski season, the dogs relax and train. We visited the huskies on their training grounds, where we saw the strong Siberian huskies who haul like trucks and the Alaskan huskies who have the speed of athletes.

This husky was especially big - his ancestors were from the South Pole.

Worming our way through the Andes, we made a stop at the highest point of the snowy road for a glimpse at the lakes we would be driving along and canoeing in.

Could hardly see any lakes out there!

Then we went off the road! Whoo hoo! The snowy forests made the rough muddy experience seem almost magical.

Woooosh!

Is he going to make it?

Dashing through the lake

LUNCHTIME!!!!!

The roaring fire you need to grill that perfect Argentinian steak

Juicy sausages

The perfect steak - medium on the inside, lightly charred on the outside

Tummies full, we donned life-vests, grabbed our paddles and headed for the lake.

I couldn't believe that we were dressed like this for canoeing

Our canoes buried in snow. One of them was named "Bahamas". What a joke.

Out on the water - cold, but magical

Rowing a boat under falling snow

Packing up and getting ready to head back into town

Whatever the weather, I just knew we'd have a good time :)

Have Kids, (Still) Will Travel

Retirement is a phase in life that everyone talks about and looks forward to attaining. That's supposedly when you finally have all the time at your fingertips to do whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want. Like travel the world.

However, one of the key reasons why we decided to do this long trip sooner in life rather than later was that we are now in the pink of health, making it easier for us to handle the physical assertions of a long backpacking trip. Okay, so maybe we're not as pink as when I was clearing hurdles on the track at 17 or when Dan was jumping out of planes in the army, but it's relatively easier on our increasingly-creaky knee caps and near-wobbly ankles now, as compared to when we're officially in the senior citizens age category. Watching some older travelers clutch at their chests while they struggled with the endless flights of uneven stone steps amongst Peruvian ruins a few months ago, I felt really glad to be touring South America now, and not 40 years later.

(That said, there are exceptions to the Young Is Better Than Old rule. We just met a Japanese man in Ushuaia who was waiting to board a ship to Antarctica. He insisted on showing me a neverending slide show of ALL the photos on his laptop. He also had the funkiest-smelling feet EVER. But he rocks - cos he just scaled the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro earlier this year. He is 75 years old.)

The other reason for wanting to travel NOW NOW NOW: kids. Or rather, the lack of them. When we were planning for this trip 2 years ago, the idea of traveling with children seemed impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. In fact, people our age with kids were confirming this perception and encouraged us to travel all we could before starting a family.

Along the way, we have met a few young couples who, like us, took a year off work to travel South America and the world. The main difference is - they are doing it with at least 2 young kids in tow. And as I watch them from the sidelines, instead of gloating "thank god we're not traveling with kids", I find myself thinking "hey, it's actually doable... gosh." And I respect them for their commitment to their dream and having the courage to take on the challenge of traveling as a family.

We spent a day exploring the Torres del Paine national park with a French-German couple and their 2 children - 10 year-old Lea and 5 year-old Cedric. We had all disembarked from the Navimag ship and were staying at Hostel Paulette in Puerto Natales.

Cedric, a raging ball of energy, tearing through the Miladon Cave en route to Torres del Paine

Lea dashing back down the bridge we had just crossed, so as to repeat her sprint across the river for papa's camera

The Valois are on a year-long round-the-world trip which started in June this year. Jim (the father) explained that they had spent a year and a half planning and preparing for this big trip. Together with his wife Gaby, they took the kids out of school and spend a good part of each day rigorously taking each child through the school syllabus - all 10 kilograms worth of it. They teach the children French, English and Mathematics. Through tours and excursions, they learn Science, History and Geography.

Lea & Jim walking hand in hand through the forest at Torres del Paine

While Cedric tore through the forests and beaches ahead of everyone else, Lea preferred to hang back and walk alongside Dan and me. I initially wondered what I should talk about to a 1o year-old, but Lea was incredibly accustomed to conversing with adults and chatted easily about school, countries the family had visited, their home in France, etc. She casually asked about our travel itinerary, our favourite colours and what sports we do, occasionally running ahead to ask her father to translate words from French to English when she got stumped (which was not often at all.)

As we walked along the trail, she stopped to pick some bright green lichen off the tree trunks and proceeded to enlighten us on the relationship between the colour of the lichen and the level of pollutants in the air! I was partly amazed at how comfortable she was with us, and partly touched that she chose to be in our company instead of clinging to her parents (which I did alot when I was 10!)

Me with the clever little elf, Lea, whose favourite colour is green

The best thing about exploring the park with kids, was learning to explore a place like a kid again. We perused the beach for the prettiest souvenir pebbles with them. We hopped and skipped along trails. We balanced on slippery ice blocks with our arms outstretched. We spotted icebergs floating in the bay and started racing one another towards them.

Cedi FINALLY taking a break from sprinting, and throwing himself at Dan's thighs

Lea walking along a balancing beam of ice

Dannie brought a giant ice sculpture to class for Show & Tell today

When we reached a long pebble beach that offered a faraway view of the Grey Glacier and a sea filled with large icebergs, Dan and I automatically whipped out our cameras and started snapping the scene from all angles, as we followed the coastline mechanically, just plodding along, 1 foot after another.

Icebergs with Glacier Grey in the background

Halfway across the bay, we realised that Lea was no longer walking with us. We looked up to see her sitting on a pile of pebbles in our wake. She beckoned to us to go over. I groaned inwardly, thinking that she must have sprained an ankle while skipping across the uneven surface of the pebbly beach. When we got there, she simply pointed across the bay towards the glacier. My first reaction was to say "yeah, I know, that's the glacier."

But Dan looked at the scene and understood at once what she was trying to show us. "She's right," he said, "This is the best spot along the beach to photograph the view." A child made us retrace our steps to see what we could not see for ourselves. But the most precious thing wasn't the scene - it was that she called us back to see what we had missed, when she could have just let us walk on blindly.

The bay through Lea's eyes: a hole-y iceberg in the foreground, pointing across the icy sea to the curving glacier

Still not quite getting that the scene she had placed before us was meant to be savoured, we pressed Lea to get up and hurry on towards the elevated lookout point at the end of the bay, where her parents were heading. She simply replied, "Could you tell my mother that I'll be here on the beach, please? Thank you." She was in no hurry to go anywhere. In her opinion, she already had the best seat in the house.

Waves crashing into ice and bursting into an icy cloud

Well, kids being kids, Lea changed her mind in a split second and raced over to her parents. Together, we scaled the upward winding trail that wrapped the cliff to the mirador. There, Lea decided to give us an impromptu French lesson and insisted that we repeat the numbers one to ten in French correctly before she let us proceed down for lunch.

Cold cold us! Un, deux, trois... can we go down yet?

After a simple picnic lunch, where Jim and Gaby asked questions about Singapore and we quizzed them on life in France (and Lea and Cedric chased each other around on the lawn), our guide took us to a few lookout points for panoramic views of cloudy blue glacial lakes.

While the name of the park is "Torres del Paine", it has nothing to do with pain. "Paine" means "blue" in the language of the indigenous tribes

A hostel in the middle of the lake

Executing one of my famously-low jumps

The thunderous Grand Waterfall

Gotta keep close to the ground cos the winds were so strong!

Check out the video that Dan created, showing footage of our arrival on the Navimag at Puerto Natales and our day at Torres del Paine. (He's getting good at this video thing - puts together clips in a jiffy!)



Early the next morning, we bid farewell to the Valois family. We exchanged website addresses for our travel blogs. Lea and Cedric even have their own pages which they update with text and photos on the family's trip website! Lea gave me her email address (yes, she was busily replying mails on her Gmail account in the hostel) and was delighted when I presented her with a list of the numbers one to ten in Chinese. Everyone was really glad that we had gone to Torres del Paine the day before. Cos looked what happened overnight!

The hotel backyard - all white!

The van that we took to the park

4D, anyone?

I used to think that I had to choose between starting a family and traveling the world. That it was either one or the other. That backpacking with children was a crazy notion, much less backpacking in South America with them. That children were obstacles to travel.

But they are not.

This is what traveling does. It opens your mind to new possibilities. That are all certainly doable.