I've finally given this blog a big update...so grab a coffee, put your feet up, have a read below and I might even entertain you.
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You can now check out some cool pics from our last five months on the road here: http://picasaweb.google.com/agrantabroad/Alinatipics

Lima, www.di.fm, the best food, aerobics, habla espanol & ceviche,

3pm Apr 25: I'm in my favourite Peruvian cybercafe (quick broadband; 1 sol or 17p an hour; 1min to Nati's house), listening to undoubtedly the internet's best invention, the marvellous, thumping home of house and trance music which is http://www.di.fm/.
You may have heard me rave about di before - but click on the 'Listen Now' tab and your net time will never be the same, I promise.
Nati's very happy to be with her family again and I'm really enjoying being in Lima as well. As usual here, I'm loving genuinely the best food I've ever tasted from Nati's amazing mum. Sorry, mum, she's better - it's true!
Joined a gym for hardcore aerobic dance classes (!!) and to sort out my dodgy shoulders once and for all, and studying Spanish every day.
Also signing up for a footy team, brushing up on my world history with the great book my Lincoln pal Phil's lent me, and celebrating my 31st birthday tomorrow with Peru's best food, ceviche (raw fish marinated in lemon; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceviche) and a particularly massive night out.
Lima can get a bad rep from backpackers. It's true parts aren't that nice...but, hey, this is South America, man, and anyone been to Brixton lately?
We're having fun with Nati's family and friends, hitting the mall and spending time with Nati's abu (granny) in Chosica, a nice town with a beautiful Plaza de Armas (main square) full of old men playing chess.
It's autumn here now, and that doesn't mean cold, dark, rainy days but mid-20s sunshine all day every day, perfect shorts & T-shirt weather.
Now I have time to catch up on the net, I'll blog again soon.
Saludos a todo
Ali y Nati

VIP, aramettos and Santiago's coolest suburb

7pm Sun 20 Apr: We're en route to Lima and are abusing the food and bar (ok, it's mainly me) in Sao Paulo airport's VIP lounge (British Airways card blag!), so I've got time to write a notebook blog about Santiago before ordering another amaretto liqueur...hic.

Chile's capital seemed a bit boring when I visited three years ago, but this time, with a tip from LAN's in-flight magazine, we found hip Barrio Bellas Artes.

This triangular suburb of characterful buildings and pavement cafes is a stroll through Parque Forestal from the city centre.

Had a very pleasant (romantic even) couple of days sipping hot chocolates and admiring grand old architecture. Also hung out with Natalie from France, seen with Nati admiring 20 different fruits on offer in the pic above.

Chilled out in artists' favourite Valparaiso, a rather grubby port with hillsides full of gorgeous, pastel-coloured homes.
Right...that's enough blogging...barman! Another of those nice amaretto things...obrigado.

Moais, Long Ears, Short Ears, wars, birdmen, Kon Tiki & an old jeep - in the most remote place in the world

8pm Fri 18 Apr: We're in busy Chilean beach town Vina del Mar on a chilly autumn evening - so I've got time to scratch my head over one of the world's biggest mysteries, in the most isolated place on the globe: Easter Island.
The planet's most remote inhabited island, famous for its giant Moai heads, is 3,700km west of South America and 1,900km east of Pitcairn Island (population 50 and of Mutiny on the Bounty fame; see French Polynesia blog below). In fact, EI, or Rapa Nui in Polynesian, is so in the middle of nowhere that, although it's a Chilean territory, it's actually in Oceania.
The stone Moais, up to 10m tall, stood on the 245 ceremonial centres which once packed this tiny 6km x 20km volcanic speck.
How on earth did people from Indonesia & the Philippines first travel here 1,200 years ago? Why did their society split into the Long Ears and Short Ears? How did they carve moais using not chisels and hammers but blunt rocks...and then move them up to 18km? Why did their civilisation destroy itself in wars which toppled every moai? And how did the even-more-mysterious birdman culture take over?
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/easterisland.shtml and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island for more on this fascinating, baffling place.
For me, the most amazing thing is that the moais, which resemble the remains of a culture like the ancient Egyptians or Greeks, were knocked down fewer than 200 years ago.
And the birdman cult - the real deal, not Alcatraz - sent men tumbling down cliffs, rafting to a wild island, searching for bird eggs, with the winner living in a cave for a year, until 1867.
This is the story which the amazing Thor Heyerdahl (of Kon Tiki fame; http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4397210,00.html) tackled by arguing the vast Pacific's islands were settled not by Asians, but by South Americans.
Something really amazing actually happened on EI.
We hired a jeep as old as the moais themselves and bumped down one of the island's many abysmal tracks on a day when it had rained continuously since 8am.
Walking round Ahu Akivi's seven moais by ourselves in the rain, the sun surprisingly ducked beneath a cloud over the sea, flooding the statues in sunset light and creating a double rainbow (one thick, paint-like), arcing perfectly over the moais.
It was absolutely unexpected and, genuinely, one of the most breathtaking moments in my life.
Alongside that time Lincoln City beat Grimsby, of course.
The Easter Island photos which blog readers may recognise are of Ahu Tongariki, a line-up of 15 moais on a plain between two volcanos, backed by crashing Pacific waves, and Rano Raraku, the bewildering quarry of 600 moais either poking out from green hillside or peering over a giant crater lake.
Being the most isloated place in the world, EI is a bit of a country bumpkin place.
This really hit home on a night out, which made Ritzy in Lincoln, the Watershed in Wimbledon and that awful 10p-a-pint, late-night Irish pub whose name escapes me in Southampton, seem like a Ferrero Rocher ambassador's reception.
Arriving at EI's (only) pub with our nice Chilean friend Mariana, locals including pensioners were either slumped (asleep or semi-conscious) over their tables, or dancing wobbily to a so-called DJ's ridiculous song selection. First was synth-pop panpipes, then salsa, then techno, then remixed Erasure.
At least we didn't come to the most remote inhabited place in the world to go clubbing.

Mutiny on the Bounty, black pearls, pamplemousse, do nothing, a ray ride & Finding Nemo

FRENCH POLYNESIA

Depending on the person, the word 'Tahiti' brings to mind images of honeymoon bungalows on stilts in the sea; white-sand atolls; the Mutiny on the Bounty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty); amazing coral and surf; and tales of South Seas black pearls.

However...the reality is that overpopulated, black-sand Tahiti (in vast French Polynesia) does not fulfill these Robinson Crusoe fantasties.

But the really, really great news is that the surrounding islands do that and more.

Scattered across the South Pacific, the Society Islands, which we're visiting, are ancient volcanic peaks, now bursting with plants and trees and sticking out of lagoons of varying jaw-dropping shades of blue-green-white. See pic above.

These lagoons (swimming heaven) are surounded by reef and coral islands ('motus', full of coconut trees), onto which big waves pound.

Maupiti was our favourite spot amid this baffling beauty, and not just for a reason some of you have heard about! This 4km-wide island, population 1,000 and more beautiful than Bora Bora, amazingly attracts almost no tourists. There are no hotels, only pensions.

There are also virtually no food supplies, due to a boat row, meaning the options for us (two of the world's leading fruit fans) were the fantastically-named pamplemousse, more pamplemousse and even more pamplemousse.

It's an enormous grapefruit, sweeter than in England and sometimes the size of my head.

Pamplemousse problems aside, we stayed Chez Manu, a lovely, plump Polynesian lady who had a sideline in paninis and had a very thin, lazy boyfriend called Jean-Claude.

Many women in these parts are big girls, and we found out why when Manu's long-overdue panini cafe food delivery arrived. A fully-stocked van was unloaded, consisting, to my amusement, entirely of Coca-Cola and Fanta.

We got stuck into another pamplemousse and quickly adopted to the locals' way of life, which consisted of doing nothing all day, then going to bed at 9pm.

The people aren't lazy - there just aren't any jobs in this tiny place, as is the case on many of French Polynesia's 118 islands spread across 2.5million square km of the South Pacific.

Major activites are drinking Hinano beer and playing ukeleles and petanque (boules).

We passed the time at a majestic beach, which we visited on bizarre bikes with fixed-chain brakes, and kayaking and swimming. This included - breathtakingly - a dip in the middle of the lagoon, with a volcano on one side and motu sand island on the other, possible after wading out on a submerged sand-spit.

Bora Bora is like a bigger Maupiti, but not quite as nice. It's jammed with tourists thanks to honeymoon holiday marketing continuing the popularity which began with American soldiers based here in World War Two.

To be fair, it's still pretty amazing, though.

The breezy balcony where I'm writing this blog is lovely and we had a crazy day yesterday snorkelling with 1.5m black-tip sharks, 2.5m lemon sharks and 1m-wingspan stingrays.

The rays were so friendly, somewhat alarmingly brushing their jellyish skin on our chests. Managed to briefly ride a ray - not every day you can say that! - dangling a fish in front of his mouth before the big fella sucked in (they have no teeth) his lunch so strongly he almost took my fingers with it.

Dived into French Poly's tumultous history of settlement (by catamaran canoe from Indonesia...Sir Steve Redgrave eat your heart out), explorers, whalers, missionaries, conquest and the almost-total destruction of native Polynesian culture.

That is is one thing travelling has taught me: every country I've visited where European colonists took over had its natives die in apalling numbers, through persecution, wars and, most devastatingly, disease - as these people had no natural immunity against European illnesses.

Got in touch with the locals in French Poly by learning their surfers' hello gesture (outstretched thumb and little finger)...this is where surfing was invented, after all. Also got picked out at a dance show to join in a mini-Tahitian traditional Olympics, throwing spears at a coconut and lifting a giant rock to head-height. Didn't try the open-a-coconut-with-your-teeth trick, though.

Now time to put right a few misconceptions about Tahiti and French Poly.

There are almost NO sandy beaches here. Even on the motu reef islands, beaches are sometimes beautifully sandy but equally as often scattered with spiky coral.

And as for the underwater coral itself, it's often not that impressive, certainly compared to reefs in Australia, SE Asia and Egypt.

What are impressive are the staggering lagoons and the fish - and the phenomenal quantity of them. Spotted dozens of species we'd never seen before, including the Nemo clownfish, found hiding in their anemone house on an island called Huahine, which strangely and amusingly (well, for me, anyway), translates as 'vagina.'

As French Poly is so remote, with almost everything imported, it's extortionately expensive, more than twice the price of England and above prices in Japan, Norway or Switzerland. The problem is the quality of accommodation and general infastructure is closer to that of Thailand.

The good news: a package holiday (which we didn't do) slashes the £600 A NIGHT cost of a hotel bungalow on stilts in the sea.

We juggled the costs, made a load of friends hitching around (public transport is almost non-existent)...and...what's better than sipping a bottle of gorgeous French wine on a Bora Bora pension balcony anyway?

The fabulous Felix, giant plastic balls, Barmy Army, helllooooo, blue lake waves & Morris Minors in cinemas

NEW ZEALAND
Nati had always told me we we just had to visit her family here. And now I know why.

Stayed with her fabulous Uncle Felix and his family in Hamilton on the North Island. I have bags of energy...but Felix...he is a Duracell battery of a man who made us feel liike sloths on a lazy day.

We were made to feel so welcome (well, apart from the time Nati's cousina Greta, 17, kicked my ass at tennis).

Felix showed us round, taking us boogie boarding by his bach (beach house) on the Coromandel; soaking us under an ice-cold waterfall; marching us up every hill he could find including Auckland's majestic One Tree Hill volcano, and; bouncing he and I down a hill inside a giant plastic ball in Rotorua (the home of zorbing; see pic above).

Nati's family laid on welcome and leaving parties and we must say thanks to Felix, Megan, Romelli, Greta, Adler, Jonathan, Nikita and Sophia.

Also caught up with Chrissy from uni for a beery day in England's Barmy Army at the cricket v NZ.

The North Island is great - but a week on the south island beat it for scenery.

If you haven't been to NZ, you really should go. You want a reason? How about the vast, flat-bottomed valleys with rivers bright blue from glacier sediment, weaving a path through the expanse of pebbles?

My favourite moment was clambering through bushes and into the middle of one of these valleys (Haast) and sending 'helllooo' echoes and whistles bouncing off the mountain walls. I felt soooo small.

How about Fox Glacier? We climbed the 13km-long chunk of ice on a day hike. It's toothpaste-blue and split by crevases, waterfall holes you can't see the bottom of...and arches, as on Nati's pic above.

The lakes are another reason to visit.

Lake Wanaka is epic and Hayes, with wind transforming its blue glacier water into giant waves, was closer to the sea and my favourite. Pukaki is a beauty backdropped by Mount Cook and Tekapo was surrounded by autumn colours and squashed between the 360-degree skies of the high-altitude MacKenzie country.

And then there is Wakatipu, a dark blue monster snaking 80km past Queenstown - the reason most people visit NZ.

Adventure sports Mecca QT is great fun, packed with tourists, endless activities and great burgers - and in a stunning setting beneath The Remarkables mountains. It's a place Nati and I loved and hope to visit again one day.

That would allow me another crack at the superb Seven Mile mountain bike course, the most advanced and challenging single-track runs I've ever cycled...and fallen off on. Think balancing along a tree-trunk with a jump at the end!

Going back would also make Nati happy as we'd visit her favourite cinema - Wanaka's retro-style theatre with sofas, home-cooked cookies and ice-cream. And a Morris Minor convertible parked in the stalls, as you do.

Rain, more rain, more rain, a sinking raft, mountain-biking, surfing, barbies & soup cans

2pm Thu 3 Apr: There's a strong breeze rustling the coconut tree by our balcony overlooking Bora Bora's famous lagoon, smack bang in the middle of the South Pacific.
Nati is preparing a Peruvian cooking masterpiece of lentejas con carne and I'm catching up on our blog. To keep things simple: there's an Australia blog below and New Zealand and French Polynesia blogs above, in the order we visited.
AUSTRALIA
The one thing about travelling is this: you just have to do your research. We didn't before we flew from Sydney to Cairns, so we arrived in Queensland's wet season (Nov - Apr). And by wet, I mean pelting, torrential rain, the sort of thing that turns streets of Cairns, Rockhampton and Mackay into rivers - as it did when we were in town.
Dumped the idea of sleeping in our hired Hipper Campervan (flower power! Peace man!) as we might have well have slept in a sauna.
We faced the rain and snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef in a monsoon, nice reef and fish but not as good as further south near the Whitsundays. Saw Barron Falls at their most thunderous - best waterfalls I've seen after South America's colossal Iguazu - and cooled off with swims in rivers like the gorgeous Mossman Gorge.
And made it to Cape Tribulation - finally. Last time I was near here, with my uni pal Andy three years ago, we were too tight to pay for the ferry. This time, we shelled out a massive £7 return but actually didn't find Cape Trib all it's cracked up to be, although Daintree rainforest is absolutely bursting with every shade of green.
Also saw the rainforest from a white-water raft...well, I did until our raft started sinking due to a hole right under...me. It was our guide's first puncture in eight years.
It was still raining, so three days' drive south, past flooded fields, the humidity and rain disappeared at Noosa, a posh beach town with lovely river kayaking to low-tide islands...and the completely awesome mountain-bike heaven which is Tewantin State Forest. It's single-track bliss, darting through eucalyptus forest despite hills closer to cliffs.
Home comforts arrived with my uni friend Ed and his lovely girlfriend Sarah, who live in Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane. Had a couple of classic Aussie days. Went surfing (well tried to, thanks for the lesson, Ed) and boogie boarding, which Nati loved until a dizzy spell after a particularly nasty wipeout. Set a meat-eating record at our BBQ, went swimming in Ed & Sarah's pool and checked out the house they're having built - nice, mate!
Steve Irwin's got one hell of a croc collection at Australia Zoo - I got crunched (scroll down for pic) then we hit cool Byron Bay and got a great feel for Brisbane staying with my mum's pals Margaret & Ken at their fairytale Aussie 'Queenslander' house. Their beautiful wooden home even had a verdanda popular with possums at night.
Thanks for the great hospitality, Barbie & Ken! My mum's other friends Karen & Don took us out on the town, so big thanks again.
Brissie's a super city (Nati's favourite in Oz), where you avoid road traffic on their mega-quick Rivercat boats, a smooth and stunning ride by any city's standards.
Ended two months in Oz with a jazz jam and a wicked Andy Warhol late-night exhibition. I never knew soup cans could be so cool.