On a quick visit to Ireland in the last few days, I met up with my niece Simone. Here she is doing some gardening:
The three generations of ladies:Hard earned drink:
Keeping up with her contacts:
Mummy and Daddy (aka Laura and Pat):
..And looking out over the Irish Sea:
xxx Roz

I've finally made it back to my home in sunny Cornwall but had a good few stops along the way. First stop Slane, where I filled up on Mam's cooking!! Then reunited with Simon in the Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Killiney (best boyfriend ever!!!). Then to Dublin for a night in O'Neil's. It was great to see to many of the 'gang' out! (don't have any photos from Ireland???? but here are some old ones from O'Neil's to jog the memory:)

Then the ferry across to Wales:

Where I was reunited with Derry: .... and spent two days in north Wales in a camper van, enjoying the coast (not as warm as Copacabana): .... and the mountains, this is the three of us on top of Tryfan in Snowdonia:

Then two days in Shrewsbury to visit Oz and Louise and meet Simon's sister Georgie:Then we hopped on a train to Burton to visit Gill and Eric:and spent two sunny days building a pond:and then finally back home to Falmouth in Cornwall and a BBQ in the garden:Where I've spent the last two weeks kayaking, board surfing, snorkeling, scuba diving and generally anything else you can do in the sea! No photos cause no waterproof camera (yet). Oh and I got two jobs, one teaching French and Spanish teenagers English and one supervising a posh seafood restaurant!!!

xxx roz

Some stats from the trip:

I was away for 204 days and in that time I slept in 98 beds. That's not including night buses which I'm guessing there was probably about 10 of. So that means on average I changed location every two days. That's a lot of moving around. Which might explain the 562 hours I spent on buses, that's 23 full days. It dwarfs the 7 hours on planes, 8.5 on boats and 15 on trains. I read only 18 books! or 30 if you include guide books. What else?? 12 countries, 14 border crossings.... are you asleep yet?

(Nicki, you spent 106 hours on buses, your longest one being 27 hours, and slept in 15 beds. Again night buses onto that and you moved on ever 1.5 days!!!)

Nerdy eh!

xxx Roz

Well it's very late coming but here is the last update form my trip.
Rio De Janerio baby!!!

Christ the Redeemer:and his views:Our hotel, in the centre beside the ocean with the red writing on the top:View from the top of the hotel at night:Copacabana beach:Coconuts and cocktails:

Ipanema beach:Nicki gone green!!!
Samba on a public tram!!
Our last morning.. sniff :'(
Stay tuned for more... xxx Roz

Iguazu Falls

Final Map!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But one more update of the trip to come...

Hello again. Now I have a lot of catching up to do. So we left you at Rosario, a city that outshone our expectations. The city looks inland on maps but it was once a bigger port than Buenos Aires due to the massive Pirana river that flows past all the way to Paraguay and beyond.

Mendoza had a lovely warm climate especially after coming up from the south but Rosario was scorching! We found it so strange how the locals were wearing woolen jumpers and legwarmers when we were down to our bikinis!! Nicki and pal on a river beach with delta island in the background:

The city is also home to the very first Argentinian flag and a massive monument was build to house it:

View from the top:From there we headed north to Corrientes and if we thought Rosario was scorching then Corrientes was a furnace.

The same river was flowing past the town, even though we travelled over 1000km north. Not too much to say about the town only that we loved the small town tranquillo pace of life and the more tropical feel to the place. I got in a twist:

...and Nicki had an encounter with a ceiling fan:xxx R & N