Where in the WORLD is Loca La Boca?: March 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

Saturday, March 21, 2009

A Tale of Four Cities

A Tale of 4 Cities – It was the Best of Times...

Hey Blogaroni Fans,It’s 2:00 A.M. on Sunday morning here in Melbourne. We just finished packing and are ready to sleep for a few hours before we head to Melbourne International Airport for our departure back to the United States.

Day 2 in Melbourne was phenomenal. What a way to end our trip. In the morning, we took a tour of the city on Melbourne’s free tram car. We got off at Spencer Street, where we found a fantastic outlet mall. As what occurs on most of my trips, I ran out of space in my luggage. Either my clothes expanded or I bought too many souvenirs (Probably the latter). I was forced to buy another suitcase. I found a cute bright pink duffle bag in the outlet mall, so I’m content. I also figured since all I bought myself was a didgeridoo and a boomerang, I found a gorgeous diamond ring that I fell in love with for a really cheap price. I not only bought it because of its beauty, but because from now on, every time I look at this piece of jewelry on my hand, I will be reminded of the beauty of Australia, and the everlasting memories of our Aussie adventure.

After the mall, we got picked up from by tour guide and drove 2 hours to Phillips Island. Before reaching the highly anticipated Koala Reserve, we had tea and scones on the Heritage Farm on Churchill Island. We saw stunning plant life and were treated to an up close encounter with a bunch of farm animals. We then headed to the Koala Reserve on Phillips Island. As you enter the forest, the smell of Eucalyptus was intense. You know that smell of a really good day spa? Picture that times 10. My sinuses were thanking me with every step of the way. Although we didn’t get to touch the cute furry Koalas, we got pretty close to them. We then had a nice dinner in town, and then headed to the infamous penguin parade of Phillips Island for the sunset. The penguin parade was amazing! The only blue penguins in the world march in numbers to their burrows hundreds of meters away from the shore. Thousands of people gather on the beach every day from all over the world to watch this daily march after the sun sets. You’re not allowed to take any pictures of the parade, but I snuck in my Flip Video camera to try and bootleg the march.

After the penguin parade we got dropped off at our hotel in Melbourne, we packed up, and here I am, writing our final blog entry, 10,355 miles away from home.

We came. We saw. We conquered. From Sydney, to Uluru, to Cairns and finally to Melbourne, this Tale of Four Cities now comes to an end. However, the mind-blowing sights, rare animal life, vivid colors, lovely weather, friendly people, and the strengthened friendship of the fantastic Aussie Trio shall remain forever.

We’re off to LAX in about seven hours, and should land in NYC at 4:50 P.M. Thank you all so much for keeping up with our whereabouts and commenting on our photos over the last 12 days. And I’m sure that you will be receiving numerous online albums from us in the days to come with the rest of our photos.

G’Day Mates!

- Christine, Claudia and Rachel

Friday, March 20, 2009

Melbourne - Day 1

Hello Blogaroni Fans!

It’s about 3:00 A.M (Saturday) right now, and thanks to the Pure Blonde Australian beer, I’m not really myself. I can’t seem to think that straight, so I apologize for the short entry. :)

We've arrived at the last stop of our Aussie adventure; Melbourne. From what we’ve seen of Melbourne, we LOVE. It’s very metropolitan.

We just got back to the hotel from partying with the locals at a club called CQ’s. It’s a three level club that holds 3500 people. The best part of the night (aside from the enjoyment of Pure Blonde beer), was when Daddy Yankee came on, we were the ONLY girls who knew the words to the music and how to dance to it. It was quite comical.

Just an update about my mosquito bite scare, it seems to be ok. For those of you that don’t know, while walking through the Daintree Rain Forest yesterday, I must have got bitten by a whole family of mosquitoes. I seem to have gotten an allergic reaction from the bite(s). The back of my right leg became VERY swollen (I took pictures, but won’t gross you out by posting) and the area was red and HOT. As my fellow hypochondriacs can relate, upon arriving back to the hotel, I was on Web MD like a mad woman researching symptoms of West Nile Virus, Malaria, poisonous spider bites, etc…I called the front desk of the hotel to inquire about my ailment, took some Ibuprofen for the swelling and applied cold compress and monitored my leg for hours (while praying to the Aboriginal Gods). Luckily, the swelling went down, and I have no fever or joint pain, so I think I’m alright.

So here are some pics of our 1st night in Melbourne. Tomorrow we are off to Phillip Island, where we will visit a natural Wombat, Koala and Kangaroo reserve, and see the infamous Penguin Parade at dusk.

I’m pooped. Thank you for tuning in, and check back with us tomorrow. Same wombat time. Same wombat channel. Good night! (or Good Morning).

- The NYC Aussie Trio

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Loca La Boca says....

Day 2 in Cairns -- The Daintree Rain Forest

Can you find the spider & web??

Can you find the tree snake? Do you see the croc's eyes?

Crocodile and Pasta, yummm....

G'day Mates!!! It's 6:18 P.M. on Thursday, March 19th. Day 2 in Cairns was another picturesque adventure. It started out rough all due to a simple typo. We received a letter under our door saying that our 4Wheel Drive truck will pick us up at 8:45 A.M. So these NYC chicks figured, "Great! Finally we get to sleep past 6 A.M.!!!" Seems as though there was a typo on that letter, because we got a phone call at 6:50 A.M. asking where we were, and that the truck was waiting! We jumped up, quickly washed and jet set for our rain forest adventure. But rest assured, a plentiful serving of NYC attitude was delivered on a silver f-ing platter once we got downstairs. So off we were with Wiley (pronounced WHILE-LEE), the smokeaholic Aussie tour guide.

We drove about 1 hour and 30 minutes outside of Cairns, to the Daintree Rain Forest. The drive was overflowing with delightful views of creeks, rivers, vegetation, and even tree frogs and Wallabies (small kangaroos)! Before arriving at the Daintree Ran Forest we stopped off at a quaint coffee shop off the side of the road. I guess Wiley sensed that these NYC girls needed some caffeine before the hike to the tropics. So the banana muffins and coffee were on the house. Not only were the muffins out of this world, but we got up close and personal with some tree frogs! (See pic above)

Upon arrival to the Daintree Reserve, we were escorted to a small boat which took up on a trip up and down the Daintree River. We were on the hunt for crocs! We didn’t get to meet the big boys, named Scarface and Fat Albert (Crocs measuring over 5 feet), but we did see some of their offspring. We also saw a tree snake, gorgeous birds, beautiful butterflies, stunning flora, and a breathtaking view of the hills and mountains that make up the Daintree Rain Forest.

We then went on two trails through mind-blowing rain forest. We learned about Liana’s (remember the vines that Tarzan swung from? This is the technical term for those vines), the vast plant life found in Daintree, the different kinds of wildlife that inhabits the rain forest and much more. Most importantly, we learned of what NOT TO TOUCH; there was a lot of different plant life that if we came into contact with, could have done some pretty severe damage to our health. Aside from the extraordinary plant life, rock formations and waterfalls, we saw some creepy crawlers, like HUGE spiders and a Tree Dragon Lizard (see pics above).

We were then taking to Tribulation Beach. The beach is a sacred Aboriginal location. Behind the beach was a small island where the Aborigines were said to have sent girls when they get their first menstrual cycle. There was also a rock formation that Aboriginal couples would go to if they were having trouble procreating.

And then it was lunch time. We were treated to lunch at a café near the rain forest. Christine was brave enough to order the pasta with Crocodile! Claudia and I stuck to the steak.

Christine says the croc tasted like pork. I’ll take her word for it. After lunch we headed to one more area within the rain forest, Mossman Park. We got to see some more cool rain forest stuff and we walked across a suspension bridge. It was very Indiana Jones.

OK folks, it’s dinner time. We’re off to the city for some grub, some more souvenir shopping, and an Australian Male Revue at a local bar! Not sure what to expect…but I’ll report back tomorrow! Thanks for tuning in…enjoy today’s pics and videos!

- The NYC Aussie Trio

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Cairns & The Great Barrier Reef

View of Cairns from the airplane

It's 6:02 PM. here in Cairns, Australia. We just got back from a day trip spent on the Michaelmas Cay, a small reef off of the Great Barrier Reef. OMG is all I have to say.

OK, so let's start with day one in Cairns. We arrived and made it to the hotel room, and decided to head out for some grub and some drinking. We were excited to celebrate St. Patrick's Day Aussie style. As Claudia was bathing, Christine decided to blow dry her hair with my 1875 Watt hairdryer. The luck of the Irish just wasn't with us at that point because my hair dryer blew what we thought was a fuse, but turned out to be the electricity for the entire 5th floor of our hotel! Ooops! The hotel manager was cool about it, and fixed the problem shortly thereafter.

So we headed out for a night on the town. Hanging with the backpackers of Cairns was interesting. We hit up two different bars, and each had many backpackers dressed in green, and some not dressed at all; there was a wet T shirt contest at one of the pubs we went to.

Day two in Cairns started at 7:20 A.M. We had a nice breakfast and then headed on the bus to take us to Michaelmas Cay. Today was one of those days where we experienced a moment of clarity, as we boarded a boat headed to one of the seven Natural Wonders of the World; The Great Barrier Reef. It was simply amazing. We boarded the Ocean Spirit Catamaran which took us two hours out on the water to the gorgeous Michaelmas Cay. We started the tour with a semi submersible ride in the Reef. Take a look at the pics below. Through this submarine-type vessel, we were able to see sea turtles, a reef shark, and many of the colorful corals the reef houses.

We then ate some lunch on the Catamaran, and then got our wet suits and snorkeling gear on for the underwater experience of a lifetime. We hopped on a small beach buggy and rode out to the reef where we snorkeled for hours. We saw sting rays, gorgeous corals, HUGE clams, schools of vividly colored fish, and the water was a pleasant 90 degrees! Oh, and guess what? NO BOX JELLY FISH!!!

We are getting ready to take a walk to the Esplanade here at Cairns, to do some more souvenir shopping, get some grub and of course, to get Christine her ice cream Yay!). We are all kind of still swaying back and forth, I guess being on the boat for so many hours has left us a bad case of sea legs. Guess we'd never make it as mermaids.

Here are some pics of the day's activities. Enjoy!

Tomorrow we are off on a 4 wheel drive adventure to the Daintree Rain forest. Hopefully, we will finally see the wildlife we've been talking about for months leading up to this trip!

Thanks for checking in with us. Talk to you guys tomorrow!

-The NYC Aussie Trio