Spanglish lessons in Ecuador: Always learn food and drink items!

Buenos dias!

I hope everyone is well - I am fabulous!

I´ve spent the last couple of weeks in Ecuador and am having a ball. Mary and I arrived in Quito exhausted after an extremely long haul but luckily had no dramas along the way and settled into our hotel for some much needed horizontal time! We had a few days in Quito to see the sights and along the way managed to pick up a couple of our tour members who had also arrived a few days early and they certainly came in handy as they both spoke more Spanish than either Mary or I!

The most distressing thing is being starving and having no idea what the menu says and then just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when the food arrives! But we survived our first meal out quite well, we all got what we thought we´d ordered and remembered to leave the lovely waiter a tip since he´d kindly been trying to practise his English to help us understand it all! We took the next couple of days to see the Old Town, La Virgen de Quito (big statue on a hill), and the New Town. Then we met up with the rest of our Budget Expeditions group....

There are 22 people in our group, 10 aussies, 8 brits, 2 canadians and 3 kiwis, plus our leader Julie, and driver Cam, and the most important member of the ensemble - Moose, our big yellow truck! So we all met up in Quito and then the next day headed up north to Otavalo, stopping on route at the Equator where we got to do all the water and egg tricks to prove we were actually on the equator, and also learnt a bit about Ecuadorian culture e.g. how to shrink a head! Very cool, nothing like how it is in the movie Beetlejuice, actually saw a real one which was even more freaky tho!

So it was on to Otavalo where we were supposed to go to the famous markets and supposed to be camping but got there in the dark because of bad traffic and it was raining really hard too so we ended up missing the markets and invading the local supermarket for beer and snacks instead (yep, learnt how to ask for beer quickly!) and then all wound up in together in a house that was under construction, in the dust, sleeping on the floor, but it was a great bonding experience for all.

After that it was onto Banos where we again got there in the dark after being stuck in two different political road blocks, and arrived to one of the local volcanoes erupting and showering the town in ash! Mixed together with the rain meant the ash was turning to concrete so there was no camping there either as concrete and canvas don´t mix, so we were into a hostal and comfy as anything, watching the ash fall outside. We had a couple of days in Banos where we saw the sights and went canyoning. For those who don´t know, canyoning is where you climb down into a canyon by jumping off waterfalls, and abseiling down the side of them when they´re too high to jump off. It was terrifying for the first jump and the first abseil but after that it was just good fun!

After Banos was Mishuali, where we ventured into the Amazon jungle for a couple of days trekking, was great, very muddy trekking but not too exhuasting, saw lots of very big creepy bugs and spiders, including a tarantula! It was hot and humid and I can´t understand it, but I was the only one actually enjoying the heat and stickyness! We did a bit of inner-tubing down the rapids in the river the next day and all got a bit sunburnt but a great time was had by all - well, we´re still debating whether the ones that tried the ´jungle juice´ still had a good time after they spent the whole night losing their insides one way or the other!

From the jungle it was back to Banos, after a stop on the side of the road due to a large car engine part on the road puncturing one of our tyres(!), for a night to do some much needed laundry and hot showers, and then onto Cuenca where we enjoyed the delights of cruising actual shops rather than markets, drinking ourselves silly on cheap cocktails (yes, learning how to order cocktails quickly too!) and visited a Panama hat factory! Now did anyone know that the Panama hat did not originate from Panama??? It actually originated from Cuenca in Ecuador and when the foreigners came in, they saw people wearing these hats and just assumed that they were from Panama (who knows why) and that´s how they got the name....just a little piece of pub quiz trivia for you...

We headed south again after Cuenca to the border of Ecuador and Peru and made it through eventually after a record quick time of 3 hours! But again, it was all pretty straight forward, as long as you just fill in whatever papers they hand to you - and its ok to guess what they want you to write when you can´t read spanish!

Now we´re in Mancora, camping on the northern coast of Peru, lapping up the sunshine and making the most of the beach, the sand and surf. I´m gradually getting there with my Spanish, I can now say whether I want chicken, fish, or meat (that would be anything that´s red, you never actually know what it is, I like to live dangerously!), and can order multiples of drinks, hooray!

So for now I´m going to sign off, I hope everyone is well, take care all,
Senorita Ronita xxx

Lessons from the Outback: #7 Outback girls don't cry...

Hello!

It been a busy few weeks since the last lesson, in fact, I have barely had time to breathe! In between working my butt off trying to earn lots of money to spend, a group of us nurses managed a fabulous trip up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque for a few days which was bliss.

Rosanne, Sarah, Emma, Naomi and I all scored days off together after much begging, pleading, and bribing, and headed off to Broome for a night of glitz and glamour, well, cocktails and a fancy dinner! We wined and dined at the Mangrove Resort in Broome while we watched the last Staircase to the Moon for the year (unfortunately it was a bit of a fizzer really), and lived it up as we were all suffering from a bit of Derby-itis. Early the next morning we were picked up by Rodger, our guide/driver/cook/general slave, and got loaded into the back of the old Land Cruiser, balanced precariously on the bench seats lining the sides. Once we were all buckled in, it was north up the Dampier Peninsula with our first stop being Beagle Bay. Beagle Bay is an Aboriginal community made famous because of the settlement of French Pallotine monks there back in 1890, and it was the monks that made the beautiful work of art that people come for hundreds of miles to see - the church, and more importantly, the altar inside which is decorated from top to toe in pearl shell. It really is quite a sight to behold and a magical experience for me, seeing something I read about years ago and have been dying to see since.

After Beagle Bay we headed straight for Cape Leveque and the beach! Yes, the afternoon was spent relaxing on the pure white tropical sand, sunbathing, swimming, croc spotting, and a fun game of spear and throw the jellyfish which I avoided as much as possible. We visited Hunters Creek but the crocs didn't want to come out and play (something i was personally quite pleased about!), and then it was back to Kooljamon at Cape Leveque where we set up camp for the night. We managed to climb over and around and under the rocks from the Cape round to West Beach to watch the sunset which threw the most amazing colours onto the red rocks there. Almost all of us made it through intact, only Sarah and Emma both managed to fall over, only Sarah did the most damage really. Being cocktail hours we were all carrying our beers with us and Sarah was carrying hers in her back pocket as we climbed. It was almost a very sorry state of affairs when she fell and landed straight on her butt and therefore the beer bottle, but somehow the bottle didn't break, she just scratched the label and got a hole in her shorts! A miracle beer bottle, and an excellent advertisement for Pure Blonde Beer - try it, you'll love it! The rest of the sunset came and went with no major incidents, was another west coast stunner.

After a very comfortable night sleeping in our tents with all the sides open and breathing in the fresh sea air, we were up early and down to the beach swimming before breakfast, then it was off to see Eric, our Aboriginal guide who took us around Swan Point where we saw turtles, mullet, dancing fish and a lot of sharks. We went fishing - very unsuccessfully, and got all our lines snagged on the rocks, so Eric and his grandson had to jump in and try to unsnag them for us, which they did! It wasn't soon after though that we had to abandon and make a run for it as we were getting caught in the tide, and I ain't swimming back to shore when there's crocs and sharks around thanks!

After another swim, it was morning tea time - fresh damper and billy tea plus two fish Eric caught (us girls were all a bit useless), and some fresh shell fish, yum, yum, yum. I have to say, I think I could get used to the whole bush tucker thing! And then back to Cape Leveque for lunch, another swim and off to Lombadina further back down the Peninsula. Lombadina was fabulous, a beautifully looked after Aboriginal community, loved the art centre there, and the beach was another hit with us. After hanging out there for a while it was back in the truck, onto the bench seats and on our way back to Broome where we went into recovery mode for the evening! It was such a great couple of days, we came back exhausted but feeling like we'd been gone for a week!

The next morning, the girls all had to head back to Derby for work in the afternoon but I wasn't starting til the day after so bought myself a bus ticket for that night and stayed on in Broome for the day - shopping! It was a long morning trawling through the pearl shops, but eventually found the one that was to be mine, and what a beauty it is! A stunning Australian South Sea gold pearl from the gold-lipped oyster, it was made for me. After only a slight hesitation it really was mine, and what do you do when you've just bought a gorgeous pearl and are carrying it around in your bag??? You head straight to the beach for some necessary sun time! The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging on Cable beach, taking in my last Cable beach sunset over a lovely cold Pure Blonde, and then a cocktail at the Sunset Bar before jumping on the bus back to Derby, ahh, a perfect day.

My surprise when I got back to Derby was that I had a visitor! Practically the whole town was out looking for me coz my friend Matty from Hedland was up in Derby but had arrived while i was away, and had visited I think every hospital employee looking for me - which of course in a small town means that everyone was now looking for me! So i arrived off the bus back in the nurses quarters to a very agitated bunch, waiting for me to arrive, and then it was off to find the said radiographer in Derby somewhere at 11pm. Proved pretty easy to find and there followed a long night of catching up and gossiping!

My last week in Derby was a rush of 7 shifts at work and much socialising and not much organising of leaving - a recipe for disaster some might say. Naomi and I were both finishing at the same time, so the night before we were due to hope on the bus we had a great night out with half the town showing up! It started with drinks and nibbles at the jetty to take in our last Derby sunset which was beautiful and then it was down to our local watering hole, the Spini, for dinner and drinking and dancing, and more drinking, and more dancing. There was a live band playing, and after they finished, Damian (one of our nurses) got up and did a few numbers for us which was a great send off. Steve, the owner of the Spini kept it open late for us and we eventually closed it down at about 1am by which time we were all dying of heat exhaustion and the only cure was going to be a swim in the hospital pool! So in we piled there, and what a fabulous way to cool down. We made it home just before 3am, did a very hasty throw-everything-in-together pack and was up again at 5 to get on the bus. Now that was painful. The bus was chocka-block and behind Nomes and I were 4 screaming, smelly, dirty, revolting kids that just wouldn't keep to themselves, and that's never enjoyable at anytime, but its sooo much worse after only 2 hours sleep and with an overhang! But we hung in there, got to Broome, grabbed a coffee, and things started to look brighter after that.

Matt arrived in Broome at lunchtime (yes, radiographers get flown, nurses get bussed), and we flew down to Perth together and Emma picked me up and we had an excellent night of catching up over cocktails! Saturday morning was a very exciting occasion - a haircut! Such a luxury that you're not aware of til you can't get one! And then it was back on the plane, across to Sydney and a reunion with mum - every girl nomad needs a courier! Mum and I have now had a few days in Sydney to do last minute shopping, organising, sorting, stressing - just the usual, but we did manage a great trip to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert, the stageshow and it was worth every one of mum's pennies to see it - thanks mum!

So now we're at the end, Red Ron of the Outback will be no longer and I have to say, its quite an emotional experience saying goodbye and closing that chapter. I have had an amazing experience so far this year, I have met fabulous people, I have seen (and done) crazy things, and I have grown in so many ways. It has been overwhelming at times, lonely too, but it has also been some of the best times of my life so far and I don't regret a second of it. It has been sad saying goodbye, or see you later, to so many new friends,but now I farewell Outback Ron, I also get to look forward to the next adventure that starts tomorrow. Tomorrow I fly out of Sydney and across to South America where I'll be for the next few months. I get to meet up with Mary, and together we travel through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, wow. And I thought the Outback was an adventure...I wonder what on earth is to come???

So here's Red Ron of the Outback signing off,
Love to all and talk to you soon!

Lessons from the Outback: #6 Always take an shade umbrella when at risk of being stranded on an airstrip...

Hey guys,

This year is just going so fast, I've been back in Derby for 6 weeks and only have 3 more left before the next adventure! Now in this edition of the 'Red Ron Chronicles', I'm going to have to do a little backtracking and catching up again, so bear with me, it might get a little confusing...
In the last email I neglected to include my trip through the Kimberley on my return from Asia, before starting back at work, so let me backtrack...

After my asia adventure, I returned to Perth to the wonderful hospitality of lovely Emma (thanks for the room babe!), and to meet up with Mum and Peter who, bless them, missed me so much they had to visit...well that, and the fact that they wanted to see one of the most fascinating and spectacular regions of Australia for themselves.

It was a very happy reunion at the airport with mum handing out the best compliment I've ever received - that I, of all people, looked 'so tanned'! Hooray! I guess that's what happens when you spend the best part of a year in solid sunshine... We had a couple of days in Perth to see the sights and recover from jetlag, before flying up to Broome, back to the warm weather, sunshine, tropical breeze and red dust! The four days we had in Broome were filled up easily with experiencing everything on offer - trawling through many many pearl shops, relaxing on Cable Beach, seeing Gantheaume Point, taking in a sunset camel ride (very amusing), a movie at Sun Pictures - the oldest Outdoor cinema in the southern hemisphere, Staircase to the Moon and the flying boat wrecks in Roebuck Bay (only able to be seen a few times a year)...whew, I feel exhausted after just writing all of them! And of course there were the markets, galleries, and many cafe breakfasts, I could've stayed forever...

But there was more fun and adventure to be had when after our few days in Broome we picked up our...Campervan! Yes, we braved the campervan experience through the Kimberley, infact, after resolving the few teething issues brought on by three of us in a very small confined space, we embraced the idea of taking your home with you, and the many experiences of 'old farts in caravan parks' and we came out the other side willing to do it all again one day! Maybe with a bigger one next time though...

So after Broome, it was through to Derby, a welcome home as such for me and a chance for Mum and Peter to see where I'd been living and 'the local' that we frequented, it was a bit of an eye-opener I think... I relished the opportunity to be tour guide, and took the drivers seat in ol' Britzy (our van) and whisked around the few sites that Derby has offer, including taking in a beautiful sunset on the Jetty (complete with wine and nibbles - added bonus of having Britzy) and a dinner at Derby's one and only decent restaurant, overlooking the jetty and the King Sound. We also managed to get a flight over the Buccaneer Archepelago and the Horizontal Waterfalls (literally what the name says, a waterfall flowing between two sets of rocks which is horizontal rather than vertical) which was stunning.

After a 'see you soon' to Derby, we let Britzy loose on the Great Northern Highway all the way to Fitzroy Crossing where we enjoyed a cruise up Geikie Gorge, checking out the 'freshies', hoping not to run into a 'salty', and then set up camp along side quite a few 'old farts in caravan parks', but it was an enjoyable night listening to the bats squealing, the dingos howling and the owls hooting...

Yiyili Community was the next stop after Fitzroy before hitting Halls Creek. They have a beautiful art centre there with lots of fabulous artists and both mum and I were tempted quite easily really into buying a painting each. The community is set up really well where all the parents are encouraged to come to the art centre everyday and because the parents come, they bring their kids who are quickly whisked away next door to the school! A win-win situation for everyone. Halls Creek we passed through pretty quickly on the way north and it was onto Warmun (or Turkey Creek) where we stayed at the roadhouse which was an adventure on its own! This roadhouse ended up being the home to numerous heavy rigs, cars, campervans, tents, you name it, it was all piled in together. It was a pretty grotty place really but I like to think it added to the character of it all...

From Warmun it was up to Wyndham to have a look at the Five Rivers lookout where, you guessed it, five rivers meet. It was quite a view to take in, and then after a aquick squiz around the rest of Wyndham (took about 5 mins) it was on to Kununurra where there was much ogling at beautiful Argyle pink diamonds (a girl can dream!), more galleries and food trails to follow, a sunset cruise up the Ord River to the diversion dam (necessary to keep Kununurra as lush and fertile as it

is!) and a fantastic flight over Purnululu National Park which is more commonly referred to as the Bungle Bungles. The Bungle Bungles are beehive-like rock formations coloured in black and orange stripes by algae on their surface, which are unique to the Kimberley and spectacular to look at from the air. We ended up staying and relaxing in Kununurra for aobut 3 days before heading back south down the Great Northern. We checked out the Old China Wall in Halls Creek which is a strip of naturally occurring old marble in the middle of red rock which, funny enough, looks just like the Great Wall of China. We trucked on through to Fitzroy for the night and back to Derby the next day where it was my turn to move out of Britzy and take up my place in the Nurses Quarters again. The next morning it was a sad farewell (only a few tears this time) to mum and Peter as they headed back to Broome and then onto the rest of their holiday down south, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of once again being on my own in the the middle of nowhere...I find it fascinating how once you're used to being on your own, it takes a while to get used to having people who are close to you around again, and yet it only takes them being there for a short while til you're back to normal and then it leaves a bit of a hole where they were when they go...

But never fear, I didn't have time to dwell too much, I was busy getting thrown back into Derby life, getting acquainted with my new housemates, catching up with old friends, and finding out who was sitll in town and who had moved on already...and now I think we're caught up to where I left off last time! So onwards and upwards...

My time so far in Derbytown has been reasonably uneventful, lots of working, working, working, trying hard to save my money for my next adventure. There have been a few animal adventures, like seeing my first live snake and plenty more dead ones, getting to know Blue-tongue lizards personally (they live under our house, look like snakes but with legs), battling with swooping bats every night on the way to work, and having many close and personal encounters with frogs of all shapes and sizes in the toilet, the shower, the sink and even the fridge (that one wasn't moving much though...)! There have been a few great nights out at the pub, including the Kimberley region Country and Western Music Festival - yes very popular up here in the Outback! There was a great marsh party the other week (yes a party on the Marsh that surrounds Derby, otherwise known as the tidal mudflats that never get wet...) where the bonfire could be seen clearly from the quarters and infact, almost every road in Derby that had a view of the marsh. Unfortunately I was on night shift so had to leave reasonably early on in the piece, incredibly early it ended up in fact, because when I was getting home from work at 7.30am, they were all only just coming in off the marsh!

I've also been housesitting for 3 weeks for my friend Di here, she's got a little hospital one-bedroom unit and puppy dog that needed looking after while she was on holiday and I was the lucky recipient!

I also got to babysit her very spunky red scooter which was a lot of fun to zip around town on, and as I found out, highly conspicuous!

Everyone was able to track my moves around town as there's only one red scooter around and you can't miss it, especially as it sounds like a ride-on lawn-mower! Lots of fun though, cruising down the highway at its top speed of 66km/hr, being overtaken by roadtrains!

I had to opportunity last week after talking to one of the Royal Flying Doctors Service nurses to go out with them to a clinic. We went to a community called Tablelands which is home to between 20 and 60 people at any one time. Its in the middle of nowhere, extremely isolated and experiences pretty harsh conditions, so I automatically thought - adventure! And it was... We left Derby base at 7am and flew towards Tablelands, circling over the community about 8.30 to let them know we were arriving and to send someone to pick us up. We landed on the 'airstrip' which is more like a dirt track with halved oil drums lining each side that can have fires lit in them to act as torches when landing at night. It was a pretty sharp and short landing, and a we bit bumpy as you'd imagine but all part of the adventure I thought...well, it was only just beginning... After parking up on the side of the airstrip and unloading all the clinic gear, we stood and waited for the sound of a vehicle on its way...it was a sound that never seemed to arrive. After sitting under the wing of the plane - the only shade available, for a good hour and a half, we eventually decided that perhaps they hadn't heard the plane overhead and didn't know we were there. Unfortunately there was no reception to be able to ring the community nor was the plane able to make radio contact with anyone while grounded, so the decision was made to send the plane up again, to circle the community once more and to try to make radio contact with the community somehow... The plane took off, showering us in a whirlwind of dust and dirt and we were left in the open blazing heat of the desert, on the airstrip with no shade and means of moving anywhere...we were stranded. After another 20 minutes, the plane landed again and informed us that after circling the community, he saw only one vehicle and it was up on blocks with the bonnet open, didn't look promising, but he had managed to make radio contact with Brisbane of all places and Brisbane were going to ring the community until they got hold of someone to come and pick us up. We had a laugh about it, and then quickly moved back in under the wing of the plane for some shelter. Only another half hour after that did a vehicle come rumbling down the track to get us, hooray! Until we saw it...it was the shell of an old toyota van, with not many windows left, a boot that didn't close properly and nothing at all on the front dash - not even a normal ignition, it was started with a screwdriver! We loaded up the van with our trailerload of things, crossed our fingers that we'd arrive in one piece and piled in on top of one another, onto the floor - no, no seats either, and just clung on as we rattled back down the track, bumping and swerving, with dust pouring in on us...

When we arrived at the community, everyone seemed to be sitting waiting for us, word travels quickly I guess. We set up a table on the veranda of a house (that was as good a clinic as we could get) and proceeded to check blood pressures, blood sugars, fill up medicine boxes, give injections, and weigh babies until at last we'd seen everyone. We'd worked hard and were tired so packed everything up and began the search to find someone to take us back to the airstrip...alas, everyone after being seen by us took off mustering
and there was no one left - we were stranded again! We went house to
house, calling out for anyone, we tooted the horn of the stripped out van, and then we sat, and we waited... Eventually someone emerged from one of the houses most upset that we'd disturbed her afternoon nap, but reluctantly agreed to take us back to the airstrip in the beat-up van. So in we went again, piled on top of gear, and other people, and covered in dust. Arriving back at the plane was a relief with the promise of air-conditioning once we finally got in the air, until we saw a grader coming down the strip - now where would you ever see one of them in the Outback??? Who knows how it got out there, but it meant that it was all hands on deck to pack her up and get outta there quick before the dust got even worse. We eventually got everything in and ourselves and it turned out to be a reasonably uneventful trip back to Derby after the unpredictable day we'd had until then! It definitely an adventure...

Since then its been another week of hideous night shifts with nothing much happening except watching the weather. Now this may seem ridiculous, but in these parts its not. See the few weeks have been getting noticeably hotter and more humid with the buildup to the wet season. And the wet season would usually not start till around late October/November. But the last couple of days have been incredibly windy with a lot of cloud building up which is something that is quite unusual. Now in the beginning we didn't really realise it was cloud on the horizon becuase there have been so many bushfires recently that the sky is almost always coloured purple and smoky somewhere (very cool to watch in itself) but then tonight as I was walking back from the jetty, I just about fell over as I saw a huge black raincloud come towards me. Within 5 mins it was spitting, and within 10 mins it was raining properly, and it was magical.

You would think that growning up in NZ, I would have seen enough rain for a lifetime, but there's something so intriguing about rain in a place that never gets any, and it was exciting! Everyone was out on the streets, standing looking up at it, dancing in it, taking everyone by surprise. What an experience! It may sound ridiculous but its something pretty amazing that'll bring a whole town outdoors at the same time. Within an hour though, it was all over and the cloud had passed, but it gave just a little hint of things to come. The locals have been hoping for a decent wet season for a few years, and the Aboriginal elders have predicted that this years wet season will come early, so it looks like maybe everyone will be happy. That shower was nice, but I hope the real wet season holds off a few more weeks so I can get all the sunshine possible out of the Kimberley!

So if you've made it to the end of this marathon read, you deserve a prize, and that prize will be that the next one will be shorter I'm sure! Hope everyone is well, keep up the emails, I love getting everyone's news.

Take care,
Red Ron