Freakin' Out

My wonderful time in South America has finally come to an end.

This morning I got back to Buenos Aires from two great weeks in Colombia hanging out with Aura and her family. We've decided to hold off until June to re-apply for Aura's visa when she's more settled in Bogota and those crazy Australians won't think she'll over stay.

Tomorrow evening I fly out of Buenos Aires with far too much luggage and a heap of great memories. Saludes and thanks to everyone I met alone the way. It's going to be strange going back to Australia, but I'm looking forward to it.

Chau!

¡Que Estupidos los Australianos!

We'll we found out about Aura's visa yesterday, and she didn't get it, which obviously sucks. The embassy sited insufficient evidence she would return to Colombia but I've not given up and we're going to re-apply. Looking back at the application, I see where they're coming from, but it's pretty hard to prove you have sufficient reasons to return to your own country. Based on property and the like I know I wouldn't be able to do it.

Aura went back to Colombia today as planned but I'm flying out tomorrow and we'll try again from Bogotá once she has sorted out an apartment and university. It'll be good to get back to Bogota and Villavicencio for a while and hang out with Aura's family, including her new nephew Juan-Miguel.

Hasta Colombia!

Fingers Crossed

We lodged Aura's visa for Australia yesterday. I can't see why there would be any problems with her application, so hopefully she'll be there from 1-Dec-2006 until 8-Jan-2007.

Brendan leaves tomorrow so from Monday it's back to work mode to get something decent together for Elevation 2 together before I get home. I'll bore you all with a nerdy post soon.

Speaking of Taking Photos...

¡Hay Que Calor!

I far from know what I’m doing with a camera, but I do have a good time taking photos with one. Here are two things that I’ve learnt this year that have helped my photos that everyone else on Earth probably already knew.

“The Focus Thing”
When you take a shot, focus on what/who you want in focus first, then frame it how you want, then shoot it. It seems really obvious when you say it out loud, but I never thought of doing it until I saw one of the guys I went to Mt Roraima in Venezuela with do it. It’s amazing how many photos I’ve seen, and taken, where the background is in focus but the person in the foreground isn’t or they’re not as sharp as they could be.

“The Flash Is Your Friend”
Excessive use of capital letters aside, this is something that occurred to me on the latest trip to Las Cataratas de Iguazu. I just happened to be taking heaps of photos of Aura in front of the falls in a whole lot of sunlight and couldn’t get her as bright as I wanted.

I‘m sure there’s some fancy technical term about white balance or exposure do-hickies or something, but basically I’ve found people appear dark when you take photos of them with a bright background. To fix that, take the photo with the flash to illuminate the foreground as well as having a bright background. You also get a sharper foreground which is an added plus.

In some of the photos from Iguazu, the whites are a bit too strong, so I think I need to play with the flash settings but I can live with them for now.

This photo of Aura at the falls in one I like in particular, the towel is too white, but she's nice and sharp and well lit despite a 1PM sun. Framing could have been better though, I think it's in a little too close.

That’s all I’ve got for now. If you know some other obvious things that I’ve been too slow to figure out please let me know.

Las Cataratas de Iguazu

Chicos

Brendan and I arrived back in Buenos Aires at 10 in the morning and by 6 were back on a bus heading up to the Brasilian border to see the amazing falls at Iguazu. Aura and Ximena joined us for the trip and we had a great time up there, spending 3 days wandering around the falls, sitting by the pool and listening to fine some Brasilian music - oh Axé, how I love thee. We also met a really cool Spanish girl up there called Zoila who joined us on our Iguazu adventures and then hooked up with in Buenos Aires.

The falls were just as amazing this time, and oddly some areas had more water while others had less. When we went to La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat), it felt like it was raining there was so much water in the air.

Salta la Linda

Felipe y Montañas

I spent a lot of time on buses last week.

I went from Buenos Aires to Santiago de Chile then Santiago de Chile to Salta in the north of Argentina, where Brendan and I did a 14 hour tour, again in a bus, of the surrounding areas, a little under 60 hours in all.

Salta is a great little city and has a really relaxed feel to it. It would have been nice to spend a couple more days there but Brendan was on a pretty tight schedule, so after much changing of plans we decided to fly back to Buenos Aires and take a bus up to the waterfalls at Iguazu. We could have made a 28 hour bus trip from Salta to Iguazu, but the thought of spending almost 90 hours on a bus in one week made me cry, so we decided to swallow the airfare.

It would have been great to get up to Bolivia and Salar de Uyuni, but I think it’s better to spend more time in fewer places then rush through lots of places and not enjoy them. It’s just another thing to pop on the list to do next trip.

Santiago de Chile

Curvas

Brendan and I met up in Santiago de Chile for a few days before heading to Salta, in the north of Argentina, and Buenos Aires. Santiago was an interesting place. I’ve heard from a lot of people that it’s a boring city, and that was my initial impression as well, but from looking at flyers for parties in little shops, I think if you got to know some locals you could have a really great time here. Speaking of fun loving locals, Santiago feels like much more of a rock city that any other I’ve been to in South America. Or maybe that’s just the fashion at the moment, since I saw heaps of kids in rock apparel.

I didn't actually take any interesting fotos in Santiago, but here's a couple of the border crossing, which was spectacular in it's own right.

Random Pics from Buenos Aires

Beso de Tango

Assorted pics from my time in Buenos Aires.

Click on the pic to see them all.

Fotos de Cotopaxi

Felipe y Bike

I've finally sat down and uploaded some new fotos. Click on the pic to go to the ones from Cotopaxi, a Volcano in Ecuador where I visited a glacier then biked down.