SlideAway

So we have now been in Chile for just over a week, and it was an adventurous one at that! We travelled to Pucon, via Osorno, from Bariloche, Argentina. Pucon is a small tourist built town, in the Chilean lake district. The main attractions to draw people to the town are adventure based activities; rafting, kayaking, mountaineering etc, or the more relaxing natural hot springs.

So our intial plans for Pucon was to climb the snow capped, Volcano Villarrica, one day and take it easy in the hot springs the next. That, however, wasn´t how it happened. When we arrived on the Friday the rain was somewhat torrential, and was forecast to continue on the Saturday, so treks up the volcano where out of the question. After a day getting acquainted with the town, we were offered the chance to go to the hot springs, we took this opportunity, seeing as the clouds where clearing and the night sky visible. After a bouncy and slippery trip in the back of a minibus we arrived at the springs to find 7 pools to take our fancy, and a single wooden hut to change and keep our clothes in! So having had a mainly wet and cold day we headed straight for the nearest pool. Walking down the steps our feet tingled as the blood rushed back into our extremities, with the temperature pleasantly warm and soothing! After about 15 minutes and a slight wrinkling of our skin we decided to move into another pool, we couldn´t determine whether this next pool was hotter or not, due to the freezing night air we had walked through in soaking swim gear. So after a few more pool changes, we settled in a mid temperature pool, and took to watching, the now clear, night sky, a large half moon, bright, and plentiful stars, and then right on cue a shooting star streaked across the sky. At the top of the springs was one pool, in which, we had seen nobody, so being the ever inquisitive we headed in only to find this one not to be a "hot" spring.The journey back from the springs was pretty fun, as the night had gone on and the beer flowed, for some more than others. Two Germans in the group had come to life anf to make it more interesting, our driver put on some German dance music, and soon erupted the two man rave in the back of a hyundai mini bus.

Stock Photo of the Springs and changing hut

So still to visit the volcano we had been assured the weather was on the turn on Monday morning, being the trusting type we listened to the guides advice, set our alarm and awoke at 6am, only to find an overcast day and reports from the base of the volcano confirming what we could see above our heads. So back to bed we headed. The same routine happened on Tuesday, 6am, rise to find more cloud overhead, only this time the reports from the base where claiming clear skies. Apprehensively we loaded into the minibus, along with two Israeli girls, and a Canadian, Austrailian, and headed for the hills. On route we found the van to be passing through some thick fog, before entering the national park. As the van sped through the dust tracks, the skies exploded into a glorious blue, giving us our first glimpse of the task ahead of us. From the van we took a small walk to jump on a chair lift, this part scared Katie, never having had the pleasure, of your knees being taken from under you by a metal bar! At the top of the chair, all the groups where gathering to put on, full cold weather gear, and crampons. Our guide showed us how to hold the ice axe and what to do if we slipped, but then continued on, we wondered if he knew something we didn´t. No cold clothes, no crampons, the brain was ticking, until canadian asked, and we where told "the snow is soft and the crampons, won´t work proper, and the extra weight on our feet would slow us down, and tire us out more quickly". That was reason enough for me! We made what was seemingly quick progress up the first slope, and at the first stopping point, the top seemed close. We then set off zig zagging our way to the summit, only to find that after 50 minutes of walking we where only slightly nearer, maybe the initial stop had caused some wishful thinking! Here we stopped for a bite to eat, a steep inclined slope, where we had to dig out a seat to stop us from sliding down the hill, after a quick 20 minute break, we where on our way again, this time walking for just on an hour, and feeling in dire need of a drink! We still hadn´t reached the summit, it was at this point lots of the groups, bunched up and the climb became slow, this allowed my mind to wander and the fear of how we where going to get down struck me. This lead to a few near misses with slipping and sliding back down the hill we had climbed. Finally the top came into view and the reality of it all so close. When reaching the top three of the five of us collapsed in a heap on the snow, the canadian went walking to the edge, and the fifth still climbing! After recoperating for a few moments and taking some much needed fluid, we finally realised the view below us.

View from the top

 Once we had air back in our lungs, we took a little walk around the openning of the volcano, and much to my disapointment you could see no lava, and smell no eggs. The smell of the fumes, was much worse than anticipated and the taste when they hit the back of your throat is horrific! So now onto the business of getting down. The guide told us to get all the cold weather gear on, even though I was still sweating buckets from the climb, he then handed us each a bum board, and then finally it clicked. The first few descents, where a little steep so the back protection, was all the equipment we needed to slide. As we got lower and the snow more wet, we needed to us the bum boards. Now, this wasn´t as easy as it might sound: deep snow, a heavy rucksac, and

Another view from the top

an ice axe as a break! Well the first few attempts could have spelt diasaster, going sideways, backwards, head first, you name it we ended up that way! Three slides later and multiple bruises we finally mastered it only to be told, that had been our final slide and we needed to walk the rest of the way!

Bruised, battered, soaked and shattered, we were shipped back out into town in the minibus, where a few well deserved beers where waiting for us, and for the first time since we had arrived in Pucon we could see the volcano from the town. Talk about an experience of a life time! This was definitely one of them! And suprisingly when we woke up the next day we could both walk, without any problems, or pain!

After a few recovery days in Pucon we have travelled North and are currently killing time in Chillan, the birth place of Bernardo O´Higgins, the man who lead Chile to independence. From here we head to Santiago, where we will spend Christmas and New Year.

And finally, a fact about Chile: it is the second-largest producer of salmon in the world.

Nuts

Here we are in the Chilean lake district, and it is just like being in the English equivalent! Vast open fields, every shade of green imaginable, luscious trees, and RAIN! A total contrast to the arid, brown, and desert like southern Argentina. There's only one thing consistent between the two and that's cows, every other field cows. Huge herds of them!
Well, first, a border crossing traumatic experience. As we are leaving Argentina, the bus is sheep herded into the Argentina entrance queue, (baring in mind we are trying to exit) both of us are feeling a little anxious, no bugger speaks english and our broken Spanish isn't getting us far. Eventually we get to the desk only to receive the right exit stamp, but no entry stamp! So it's back on the bus for another 25 minutes to the Chilean border! Once there again herded into an office but this time put in order in the queue, quite painless and another new stamp in the passport! However we are all kept in the office and in comes the sniffer dog. Alls well, then we collect our bags for them to be x-rayed, you guessed it, we both get our bags searched. Well, katies wash bag get searched, and me well, it starts with the wash bag, then the contents of the main pouch on my bag get emptied into a plastic tray, and all in search of what? PEANUTS which in actual fact are my malaria tablets, oh and guess who get to repack the bag!!!

Now that's off my chest what have we been upto? Well from el calafate we took a 28hr bus to bariloche. In the winter its one of the biggest ski resorts in Argentina, and at the right time of year quite the party town!

views over the lake

From here we had some outstanding views of the surrounding mountains, still snow capped for the most part. we took an easy hike, had both of us gasping for air after 10minutes, up cerro campanerea, the effort was well worth it, it gave us a total panoramic view of the mountain ranges and multiple lakes and islands!

some of the views

 Now bariloche had national fame, not only because of drunken students and even more drunk skiers, bariloche is notorious in the chocolate making world, and of course it would be rude not to sample it!
One final thing from bariloche, we found our cheapest carton of vino, 4.90pesos that's roughly 85p for a litre, and it puts lambrini to shame!

katie  and aforementioned wine

After nearly two months in Argentina, I finally tried maté, a herbal drink, that every man, woman, young and old drinks! Everyone carries a thermos of hot water and what looks likes hollowed out coconut, and a special sieve spoon to drink the concoction, well what can I say? It's rank, it tastes like old leather, and I've chewed on old leather! Apparently I tried the most popular, an a sweeter one is available, I won't b trying it thank you very much!

So our destination in Chile is Pucon, set within 20km of an active volcano, and surrounded by multiple hot springs, and in the shores of a massive lake! That's all we can say for now because we are still on the bus getting there!

A new feature, country fact: In Argentina, the plague is still a commonly recognised disease!

Ice Ice Baby

And England thought it had ice

Anything England does Argie does better, while reports of a foot of
snow in parts of England filter through facebook, we have travelled,
23 hours on a 3 buses, to deep south argentina to the centre of
Patagonia! More specifically EL Calafate!

El Calafate is set on the biggest lake of this fine nation, lago
Argentina, when arriving here there was a noticeable drop in
temperature combined with an increase in wind speed, described as a
constant breeze in late spring early summer. If we are experiencing
light breezes I would hate to feel a gale, the hostel appears to rock,
and jumping straight upwards resulted in being blown about a foot from
where you initially took off!

The reason for our stay in El Calafate is to visit the world famous,
Perito Moreno glacier, one of few in the world that is actually
growing! Moving about 2m a day! The apparent notoriety of the glacier
is because of it's growth and a special event that occurs about every
two years, where the glacier meets solid ground and forms a bridge,
this acts as a dam until the water wears a tunnel through the ice, and
eventually the whole thing "explodes"

The reason for its notoriety

So on the day of our trip to the glacier we wake up to a sunny, blue
sky! But within an hour the clouds have rolled in and the forecasted
rain, turns out to be snow! We board our minibus and take the 80km
trip into the glacial nation park, through some of the surrounding,
now snowcapped, mountains. Our first stop of the day is to take a boat
out to the southern face of the glacier! This stands 40m above the
lake, and shows the impressive structure of nature! It was absolutely
Baltic on the boat, fortunately we went prepared with multiple layers
on, an just about kept warm!

A cold Katie on the boat

From the boat it was back to the bus, and a little way up the road we
where dropped off at the viewing balconies, 5km of metal walkways,
giving views of the northern and southern faces, plus the
aforementioned world famous joining of ice and land! It was actually
colder on land than the boat, and the wind seemed to pick up along
with the periodic snow storms!

Wrapped up Alex

We were told that visiting the glacier on such a day gave us much more
picturesque views as the ice appears to glow blue against the dull
backdrop, as opposed to looking white in the bright sunlight! We did also get to see the creation of ice bergs, as a chunk of ice breaks of the glacier and falls in to the lake below.

The Northern face

One of the unofficial highlights of the day came from earwigging into
an old American couples argument, which consisted of him wanting to
stay where he was, and her wanting to go onto the lower balconies, and
the back and forth argument that ensued kept us entertained whilst
eating our lunch!

We briefly met one of a group of guys who have driven from Canada
through America, and south America with a target destination of the
antarctic, I didn't have the heart to point out that there was water
between Tierra del Fuego and The Antarctic!

Think that's all to report for the time being!

P P P P P Pick Up a Penguin:

Mar del plata has been and past, it was a nice coastal town with some
killer waves for those who concern themselves with standing atop of

them on an old door! Other than that and a large casino the town
didn't really hold much for the imagination! Plus the hostel we stayed
in was straight out of the 80's, complete with woodchip, and tabacco
stained ceilings!

Now we are in puerto madryn, on the edge of Patagonia, and a place
where some welsh settles made home in the 1700's I think! Some of the
place names, buildings, and the vast number of sheep, could place us
anywhere in Wales except for the good weather!  Conveniently the first
settlers built their town at the top of a cliff, make of it what you
will, but as the old tale goes "the sheep push back harder"

Well onto our main reason for stopping in puerto madryn! the coast
here has become home for many forms of sea life, and a visit to the
nearby peninsula valdes gave us an up close and personal view of some
of the animals. First stop on our tour was caleta, to get up close and
personal in the mating grounds of the penguins, we where able to get
an arms length away from the penguins, who are currently protecting
their young, so much so that every passing bird was treated to a
chorus of penguin calls! We then moved a little along the coast to a
beach containing miles of elephant seals, due to the time of year we
just got to see them lying basking in the sun, occasionally doing
their own version of the worm to get to a new position! Our final
point on the trip was to Puerto piriamides, here we boarded a boat out
into nueva golfo, to get to see some whales, after travelling for

about 20 minutes we got our first sight of these massive creatures,
from about 200m, we then got a little closer to a mother and calf who
seemed really serene and unfazed by the presence of the boat, we
watched these for a good 20mins, as we thought we where heading back
to shore we caught a glimpse of a larger calf jumping in front of
another boat, it was great to see but a little disappointing it wasn't
infront of us! Finally we got a confident pair near our boat, who
seemed to want the attention splashing their tails, and generally
horse playing with one another! So we went home happy!

With all the goings on with the penguins and whales, it was easy to
forget we had seen free roaming ostriches, llamas, and grey foxes!
Unfortunately we are a little early in the season for seeing orcas but
we might have missed the other whales had we waited till later in the
month!

One disappointment we have had, was building ourselves upto see Harry
potter! The girl in the hostel was adamant it would be in English with
subtitles, but imagine our disdain when we got to the cinema to be
told it was in Spanish! We had been and bought sweets and everything!

Now our plan is to head south, and take in the wonders of the
glaciers! So a 17hr bus ride to look forward to on Sunday! And then a
4 hr one straight after!

Don't cry for me...

So we travelled back to BA from Uruguay and it didn't disappoint, on arrival we ate our first take away, mmmmm Chinese! So what did we do different to the last time we where in BA? well...we revisited Palermo only this time in glorious sunshine, which allowed us to take in the botanical gardens, the Japanese gardens, as well as the street Market fashion designers! While visiting the gardens, and a few other parks during our travels, our attention was turned to how under utilised our public spaces are, in the parks here of a weekend you can hire bikes, roller blades, pedalows etc and everyone uses the park to spend time with friends and family or to exercise! My musings where that, with no football played on a saturday afternoon made this possible!

We also paid a visit to Eva Perons grave, or more accurately her tomb! The cemetery where she rests, is predominantly filled with highly decorative buildings, most with windows allowing you to see the caskets that are housed within, and some have a crypt to house multiple generations of the family, rather than being secured by a few tonnes of soil. god help BA if night of the living dead where ever to occur for real! The cemetery houses a lot of wealthy and previously famous people, be they politicians, scientists, medics or war generals! 

In BA is a 30 or so foot, mechanical flower, the petals open during the day, and then close up as the sunsets of an evening!

We managed to take in the national park this time. Although there were no severe weather warnings, the park was kind of in drought. both the duck and gull pond contained no water, but the street sellers outside the parks entrance sold some amazing street meat! 

Final act of the stay was to visit the famous camnito street in La Boca, this area sees the buildings decorated in bright colours, and offer tango shows on the street, with photos to be had in tango regalia! They even have their own Diego-a-like, so good we had a double take to see if was the man himself! The Boca Juniors stadium is also in the Neighbourhood, the character offered by this yellow breeze blocked behemoth, puts our Ikea, self assembly flat pack stadiums to shame. Unfortunately even though our visit coincided with El Classico, boca v river plate, the only available tickets where priced at £90 each, and we're aren't that much of a togger nut to pay that sort of money!

During our time in BA we has our first and second Argentinian steak one which we cooked on the electric job in the hostel, still didn't disappoint, and the other a beautiful tenderloin from a busy little local restaurant, and both of them made the meat we get at home look like meat you would give the dog, no fat or string bits, and hardly and water lost out of them! B E A Utiful.

We are both kind of gutted to be leaving BA, it's somewhere we both really took to, nowhere did we feel unsafe, and the city seemed to open it's arms to us, definitely a place we would revisit and would recommend! But with hostels in chile booked for christmas we need to make tracks through the rest of Argentina.

We are presently on a bus to Mar del Plata, a seaside resort to the south of BA. We plan on spending the weekend there before heading further to the south an into the Patagonia region!

Carlos paz

Buenos Aires

Punta del Este

Tone it, tan it...

The Monaco of Uruguay, or so it's rumoured! Punta del este, a small peninsula on the eastern tip of Uruguay , it houses a port for some big fancy yachts, that at the moment is pretty empty, and some glorious beaches that the guidebooks declare "tone it, tan it, wax it, and put it on punta" well we have done none of the previous and apparently neither has anyone else we have seen on the beaches, we feel quite  at home as our pasty white selves! In the port we saw some sea lions awaiting feed from the fish Market left overs, and I'm almost sure we saw one eat a sea gull! 

Montevideo was a bit of a strange place, home to some multinational corporations and the massive independence square, but apparently not much more! Also there are lots of dead fish washing up on the beaches but for no apparent reason! On leaving BA we took a ferry to colonia, an then a bus Montevideo! We did have another cracking thunder storm in Montevideo and the rain really fell! 

It's pretty strange at the minute as we are only 2 hours behind the UK but so far away! Not sure if that will change tonight as the americans change their clocks this week instead of last, but we shall see!

We return to Montevideo on Tuesday for a couple of nights before returning to BA, to see if some normality has returned after the previous weeks mourning!

Urugauy appears to be a well established country in financial terms, but this has made the place feel more expensive than Argentina, and from the fact you can but pretty much anything on the never never, it seems that the cost of living doesn't match the income of most people! 

Also Katie has a new obsession, Dulce de Leche! A kind of imitation caramel that seems to be put on everything!

Crash. Bang. Walloped.

We are now in buenos aires, having spent a week in Mendoza. In Mendoza we did a bikes and wine tour where we visited 4 wineries, 2 of which with their own vineyards on site! As part of the tour we rode between the wineries, and in each winery we got 3-4 glasses of wine to try (unfortunately not full glasses) the wineries ranged in size from making 100k to 1.8million bottles a year! We took it relatively easy the rest of our time in Mendoza but did a fair bit of walking around the cities massive park! We found the Liverpool pub, with typical beatles posters for decor, though the maps of Scotland and Wales where some what confusing!!!

 So a 15 hour bus ride saw us arrive in buenos aires, only to find everything, including mcdonalds, closed apparently because of the census! Also in the time we where travelling the ex president(the current presidents husband) had died, the main square outside the presidential palace was filled with mourners waving flags, carrying flowers, and displaying messages of support. On thursday we again walked to the presidential square where railings had been setup to herd the mourners into see the casket lying in state, along with this Thursday has traditionally seen protesters march upon the palace to air their grievances, this was no different as the roads were filled with the sounds of drums and chanting! The coffin has now left BsAs and is to be buried in Patagonia somewhere!

Katie bought a pair of jarg ray ban sunglasses, only for the weather to totally change from glorious sun to heavy, constant rain!

In BsAs there is an area named soho which on a Saturday all the bars open in the day and allow local designers to display their designs, and there are some really cool little shops! 

We have been introduced to beer pong, an overactive drinking game, that if neither team are very good you don't drink very much! Also found a herbal Argentine spirit called fernet, it's 43% and tastes a little bit weird.

Thursday night a guy got knocked over by a car infront of our very eyes, what made it worse was the total lack of communication skills, to see if he was ok, even though he did walk away from it!

We keep losing our bottle over buying stuff because the exchange rate is 6 to 1 so things seem expensive when they are actually really cheap, like a kilo of fillet steak in the supermarket is about 6 quid an that's in the capital!

Well we take the boat to Montevideo(Uruguay) on Monday and have about 10 days there before returning to BsAs for a few more days before heading to the colder south!

A little bit cuckoo

It turns out the weekend we arrived in cordoba was an argentinian holiday, so on the Sunday and Monday it was quite busy in the town but with none of the shops open, on the Monday in the main road through the city a stage was setup and a "famous" Argentinian band performed for free in a folky style concert, but only after some expressive dancers had warmed the crowd up. 

Whilst in cordoba we visited a number of museums, explored the city, and spent some time doing nothing in the park! Oh and went for all you can eat yum! We also found orange flavoured smirnoff and drank it with fanta grapefruit liltalicious! 

On one occasion we took a bus to a small town in the sierras with the prospect of visiting che Guevara's childhood home! When we arrived we found a sorry for itself tribute to the rascal and rebel, the house he lived in for all of 5 years and the museum was a few reproductions of family pictures and a few maps! The only plus was a real life autograph from Hugo chaves and fidel Castro!

From cordoba we travelled to villa Carlos Paz! A small town dubbed the las Vegas of Argentina, the only thing I can see in common with las Vegas is it has more than one casino and sells loads of home made t-shirts! oh and a giant cuckoo clock! In Carlos Paz we did manage to hike up a small "mountain" and got some impressive views over the whole town. And we had ice cream, 2 waffle cones 5 scoops of ice cream came to less than £2! 

Currently on the top deck front seats of a bus to Mendoza, great view of the setting sun, and a good way to spot the emerging nights stars! A few close encounters involving scooters not moving quick enough and the bus almost giving them a helping hand! The road we have taken so far is similar to the snake pass, lots of twists and turns through the sierras! There's a Brazilian film on the tv spoken in Portuguese and Spanish subtitles, makes for interesting viewing (2 filhos de Francisco if you are interested)

One thing makes this bus journey different! The buses are usually freezing but tonight both of us are radiating heat due to the sun burn attained today walking near the lake in Carlos Paz!

Well 9 hours or so till we arrive in Mendoza, wine country of Argentina woop woop!

A few small Pictures

Copacobana Beach

Christo(Rio)

Ilha Grande

Waterfall Ilha Grande

Paraty River

Botanical Gardens Curitiba

Paraty

Iguaca Falls(Brazilian)

Katie @ Iguaca

Oscar Niemayer Museum

Iguaca Falls(Brazilian)

Don't do that there!!!

Ok so a long while since we posted anything! So Sao paulo was a huge place, Paulista avenue the new business centre of the city had a very American feel lots of highrise buildings, and clearly separated blocks! The old centre has some very picturesque buildings, but there's also a large homeless population which is clearly visible!

After a week in Sao Paulo we took a trip further south to a smaller but older city called Curitiba! In Curitiba we took an open top bus ride around the city taking in all the sights and stopping the see the botanical gardens and tangui park, we also visited the uniquely styles Oscar niemayer museum which houses a collection of architectural designs by the man himself! It was in Curitiba we had our first wierdo experience, a guy who could speak as much English as we can Portuguese decided to talk to us with what seems like the intent to to get one or both of our phone numbers, we finished our drinks and ran into the dark wet night away from him! 

A 10hr overnight bus found us in foz do iguaca, the Brazilian side of the worlds "widest" waterfall, widest being a cheat seeing as they are made up by 270+ falls, the pictures don't do the place justice, the shear force of nature is unbelievable. We crosses the border into Argentina to see what their side of the falls had to offer, while more organised and tourist centred the views on offer where nowhere near as spectacular as the braIlian side! 

After the stay in foz we headed across the paraguayian border, only for us to realise the bus doesn't necessarily stop at the border so we had to jump off the bus and walk back to get our exit stamp, in the meantime the bus had left leaving us to walk across the bridge of friendship and into paraguayian customs! 

Ciudad del este is just one huge Market where the worlds pirates hang out! You name it they probably have a copy of it! From clothes to shoes, from iPods to slypads, one chap would even embroider the logo you wanted whilst you waited!

From ciudad we headed 6 hrs, for a tenner, on the bus to asuncion with the treat of badly dubbed Spanish movies blazing over the buses speakers, upon arriving at the bus terminal and waiting in trepidation at what we hoped was the right bus stop into centro! Eventually the bus came and we hopped on expecting a 10-15min bus ride, oh no half an hour later we where still on the bus heading past a "picturesque" local square, filled with tarpalling tents, and shoeless vagrants, and surprise  surprise 2 blocks later was our hostel! 

Asuncion didn't really offer much and the 6 nights spent there was overkill, especially after night 4 seeing a middle aged woman pissing in the gutter of a busy street! Only saving grace was the recommendation of the brittAnia pub, a proper bar serving reasonably cheap beer, and playing Brit-pop from all decades!

So now in cordoba, possibly the most European city we have been to so far, loads of bars and clubs(there are 9 universities in the city)! The bus ride here was a drag, 1 bus took 6 or so hours b4 we had to change onto our night bus, this bus creaked at every bump in the road, which where frequent as every road on the 12 hour journey was seemingly a cobbled street! Also the numerous snorees nearby did not help and the occasional sleep induced fart! Our first night in cordoba was fun we walked to the main square to find a wedding coming out of the cathedral, @ 10pm! And for a soundsystem getting set up in the square, apparently for a tango display, but imagine our surprise when the "display" was a load of local oldies who come out every Saturday night to dance in the square, just like being in the legion on a Saturday night! One couple, then chap about 85, would of put the celebs on come dancing to shame!

Well of out to explore the other surprises cordoba has instore!

And now its began

Ok so its taken a little while to get going with this, but as you have guessed we have been in brazil a little over 2 weeks now!

started off in Rio, visiting the norml sites and sounds. Sugarloaf, Christo, and the maracana, plus a superb street party on a friday night in Lapa.

Since Rio we have spent four nights on the tranquil island of ilha grande, which entailed a 3hr bus ride, and the 50mins on a catarmaran to get there, from there we spent 2 nights in paraty, a very european feeling town on the coast, with a pier and an active fishing community.

Just arrived in Sao paulo and will see what it brings.

2 more sleeps

So we have two more sleeps until we embark on our outbound journey. Manchester-New York-Sao Paolo-Rio de Janeiro. 30 or so hours of travelling seems like a long haul but when it compares to the length of time we will be there for, it is only short term. The next post we place will be from the other side of the world.